Talk:Retirement risk

General Comments
--ThePrune 21:21, 7 September 2011 (EDT) LadyGeek: Thanks for creating this wiki article framework. It'll give us all a place to drop references and facts as we encounter them elsewhere.

--LadyGeek 21:42, 7 September 2011 (EDT) ThePrune: The SOA software report is also useful for an on-going forum thread: Redefining risk (investment risk), as there were a number of comments on the deficiencies of retirement planning tools. The 2009 reports discuss impacts from the 2007-2009 financial crisis (a surprisingly minimal influence). An interesting find, maybe as an example.

Planning for retirement
I thought this was risk but it's not. In case this is important:

There are financial advantages to delaying retirement. In 2007, the Society of Actuaries, and again in 2009, asked retirees if their financial security would have increased by delaying retirement for 3 years. The most significant reason is to continue receiving employer-provided health insurance; a significant benefit for those not yet eligible for Medicare. Other reasons for delaying retirement were:
 * Increasing the amount received from Social Security
 * Increasing the amount received from a defined benefit plan (pension)
 * Having 3 more years to make contributions to investments
 * Relying on your savings for a shorter period of time

The study found that pre-retirees were more likely than retirees to think that the factors listed above would increase their retirement security. In reality, financial security depends on individual factors.

It is also important for those who would like to work longer to plan realistically. Skills must be kept up-to-date and coworker networking must be maintained to keep pace in the workforce.

The retirement planning horizon is critical. A pre-retiree has a 10-year planning horizon; a retiree has a planning horizon of just five years; while very few look 20 years or more into the future when making important financial decisions.

Debt reduction
The report discussed debt reduction as a way to manage financial risk, but it appears to be more of a methodology. I'm not sure if this is what was intended for this article. --LadyGeek 21:50, 10 September 2011 (EDT)