Workers Are Living Longer: Prepare Your Clients for Retirement

Due to increasing out-of-pocket medical expenses and the rising costs of living, experts predict that some workers may have to work longer and retire later to be prepared for retirement. But who wants to work past the age of 65? To help safeguard against this, it’s imperative that you educate your employer clients on the importance of offering a company-sponsored retirement plan. You’ll also need to encourage your clients to participate in a workplace retirement plan as soon as possible. Here’s what you need to know to ensure your clients are prepared for the extra retirement years ahead.

Key Takeaways:

• Longer lifespans create a need for larger retirement savings.
• An increasing life expectancy could lead to postponed retirement.
• Contributing to a retirement plan as soon as possible could help prepare your clients for the retirement years to come. 

Stay informed about extended life expectancy and retirement:

Access to quality medical care means people are living longer than they did in the past. With a longer life expectancy seniors will be able to spend more time with loved ones and enjoy more of life’s milestones such as their children’s weddings or the birth of their grandchildren.

While this is generally great news, it may lead to a retirement period of 25 years more. During this time, retirees could potentially outlive their retirement savings. To help safeguard against this, experienced workers may need to continue working and retire later than they expected. Alternatively, plan participants can contribute to their retirement accounts more aggressively to take advantage of compound interest, which can help maximize the likelihood that they’ll have enough funds to last their potential 25 more years.

You, as a financial advisor, can help your clients accomplish this by educating them on the importance of participating in a retirement plan as soon as possible. You can also inform them that contributing as much as possible from the start can help to give them a strong head start for their future. 

Educate your employer clients about sponsoring a retirement plan:

The first order of business is to encourage your business owner clients to provide a workplace retirement plan such as an ePlan Services 401(k) plan if they don’t already do so. They might think that it’s too expensive or too much of a hassle to manage, but you can put their minds at ease.

Explain to your clients that starting a new retirement plan can actually be advantageous thanks to the valuable tax breaks they could receive as detailed in SECURE Act. You can even show them how much they stand to save by entering their business information into the ePlan Services Tax Credit Estimator and pressing calculate. Plus, if they choose to sponsor a plan from ePlan Services, we’ll provide them with all the plan education and resources they need to make running their plan a breeze.

If your clients still give you push back about starting a new plan, mention that with the ePlan Services Advisor Referral Program, you can refer them to ePlan Services to start their plan and they’ll receive $1,000 off their plan setup fee.

Ensure your non-business-owner clients participate as soon as possible:

Now more than ever is the time to educate your clients on the importance of contributing to a retirement plan as early as possible. Social Security alone may not be enough to finance their retirement in the long term. This is because funding for Social Security that was once a surplus is not being replenished quickly enough. In fact, the Social Security Trust is projected to be depleted by 2034, which will likely result in decreased benefits or an increase to the retirement age. The earlier your clients start saving, the more time their funds will have to mature for times when they’ll need them most.

By participating in a workplace retirement plan such as an ePlan Services 401(k), your clients can use our participant dashboard, giving them the freedom to contribute as aggressively or conservatively as they wish to. Additionally, as your clients inch closer to retirement, they can make catch up contributions to help further pad their retirement savings.

Your clients trust you to provide them with solid financial advice. Doing your due diligence could mean the difference between your clients begrudgingly continuing to work past the age of 65, or them living a leisurely life consisting of rocking in a chair on their front porch with an iced tea in hand, reflecting on the outstanding advice you gave them 40 years ago!

Conclusion:  

Retirement years will be here before your clients know it; extended lifespans could make those retirement years even longer. You can help your clients prepare for life after work by educating them on the importance of contributing to a retirement plan early. No one should have to work past their golden years; with the proper preparation, your clients may not have to.