Protecting

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[su_column size=”2/3″] Life is full of uncertainties and challenges. Planning and managing your retirement income plan, while extremely important, isn’t enough. Unless your income plan is properly protected, your investment assets can be prematurely depleted. Your entire plan can be derailed in a fraction of the time it took to build it.

At Retirement Income Center, we not only help you plan and manage your retirement income, we also help you protect it.

Your Income Protection Plan

An unexpected life event such as disability, the need for extended care, or death can significantly reduce the longevity of your assets for you and your family. You may find that funds earmarked for retirement or other financial goals suddenly need to be diverted to handle the significant financial challenges brought on by such an event.

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At Retirement Income Center, we take income protection very seriously. With proper plan protection, the potential for financial devastation will be minimized. Your plan for achieving your various goals and remaining financially independent is less likely to be disrupted.

Income Protection Strategies

“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”
—
WINSTON CHURCHILL

We work with you and your other professional advisers to design, optimize and coordinate a retirement income protection plan to meet your needs. We review and analyze existing insurance policies to determine how potential benefits would affect your financial situation and your ability to achieve your retirement and other financial goals.

Retirement Income Center designs and coordinates tax-efficient strategies, minimizing assets and income used to pay for these strategies, whenever possible to meet your income protection needs. We analyze and recommend the following three types of income protection strategies as appropriate as part of your retirement income plan:

  • Long-Term Care
  • Life
  • Disability

When there is a need for additional or replacement protection, Robert Klein offers solutions as an independent life insurance agent (California Insurance License #0708321 and nonresident insurance licenses) through his association with Crump Life Insurance Services. Bob has access to numerous highly-rated life insurance carriers that offer competitive alternatives for meeting your financial needs.

Bob has specialized expertise in extended care planning. He has held the Certified in Long-Term Care (CLTC) designation since 2006 and has implemented many extended care plans for Retirement Income Center clients.

Extended Care Protection

When a loved one requires extended care, it can have a profound effect on your family and your retirement income in the absence of an extended care plan. There are two sets of consequences to your family of not having a well-defined plan:

  • Emotional and physical well-being of caregivers
  • Financial

Emotional and Physical Well-Being of Caregivers

Studies have shown that providing extended care for an individual who is chronically ill can have a devastating effect, both emotionally and physically, on caregivers. When a loved one requires care, a wide circle of primary and secondary caregivers, other family, friends, and community members often provide the care and are adversely impacted by the responsibilities.

Financial Consequences

Uninsured medical expenses, including extended care, are the top financial worry among men and women age 55 and older. Studies have shown that people are five times more worried about being a burden on their family than dying. Failing to plan for extended care can be detrimental to the achievement of your retirement income goals.

If care is paid from retirement assets, it will require a reallocation of income intended for retirement. Financial consequences include unnecessary, or prepayment of, income taxes, potential depletion of assets, and the undermining of the financial viability of a spouse or children.

Many people believe that they have enough assets to self-insure an extended care event. It’s important to keep in mind that assets don’t pay for care. They are simply generators of income. A comprehensive extended care plan that includes long-term care insurance preserves the emotional, physical, and financial well-being of those you love.

Life Protection

Life insurance helps protect your retirement income plan against premature death. Insufficient life insurance can severely reduce investment assets otherwise intended to be used for retirement. Some key advantages of life insurance include:

  • A death benefit that’s free from income tax and is usually significantly greater than the amount paid in premiums
  • Cash value with permanent life insurance policies that can be tapped during your lifetime if the need arises
  • Immediate inheritance to heirs since life insurance proceeds aren’t subject to probate
  • No public record of policy payment or beneficiaries
  • Policy value often protected from creditors
  • Proceeds exempt from estate taxes with proper planning

Life insurance is complicated. At Retirement Income Center, we have the experience and expertise to help you determine your need for life insurance, the amount required for your financial situation, the right type of policy, and the most appropriate form of policy ownership and beneficiary designations. As part of our service, we evaluate your existing individual and group policies to determine how potential benefits would affect your financial situation and your ability to achieve your retirement and other financial goals.

Disability Protection

Disability insurance is a viable solution for protecting your retirement income plan against the possibility that you could become disabled and unable to work. An unprotected, or under protected, disability event can significantly reduce the longevity of, and potentially prematurely deplete, your investment assets.

Disability insurance is designed to replace 45 to 60 percent of your gross income on a tax-free basis. Your disability insurance benefits will be taxable if your employer pays your disability premiums and they aren’t included in your gross income.

Key Questions

If you aren’t sure whether disability insurance is important, ask yourself the following four questions:

  • How long can you afford to live without your paycheck, or draw, if you’re self-employed?
  • How would you and your family be affected financially and emotionally by your unemployment?
  • For how many days, weeks, or months could you support your current lifestyle before depleting the assets you’ve accumulated?
  • Do you have a plan to replace your income in the event that you become disabled and aren’t able to work for an extended period of time?