SUMMARY

1. Seniors may be living longer than they had planned
2. Seniors may not have saved or invested enough.
3. Seniors are concerned that Social Security might change.
4. Medicare might change.
5. Inflation might re-ignite.
6. Long-Term Care Insurance is more difficult and more expensive to get than when seniors first considered it.
7. The senior may need care from their adult children.
8. Income taxes might increase.
9. Seniors may have already lost their lifelong spouse, friends, and maybe even one of their adult children.
10. While the senior knows the industry where they worked for 40 plus years, they do not know the financial industry and everything that they learn about money comes from newspapers, TV, and from financial professionals like us.
11. The senior has more at stake, both financially and emotionally, than any other time in their life. They are forgetting more, hearing and seeing less, and cannot easily multi-task and balance and schedule one on one interviews, client seminars, and research in the same afternoon.
12. Seniors don’t think about their money regularly. If they did, they would have less credit card debt and diversify more. What we do for people more than anything else is we help them think about their money
13. The difference between acting now and five years from now can mean thousands of thousands of thousands of dollars.
14. Retirement planning for the senior is dramatically different than retirement planning for the younger consumer because their needs are dramatically different since a) earned income is often not involved, b) they’re paying taxes on Social Security income, c) they may be at the onset of requiring long-term care, d) there is product complexity, and e) their insurance concerns and insurance needs are dramatically different than a young consumer.
15. The five most overlooked risks are inflation, income taxes, lack of diversification, living longer than expected, and possible Social Security change.
16. The five myths that have had a crippling effect on the retirements of so many are:
    1. Social Security benefits will not dramatically change.
    2. I should keep most of my money in the bank,
    3. tax brackets won’t change,
    4. inflation is under control, and
    5. buy during the good times and sell during the bad times