Many people don’t think they will need life insurance after they retire. They think its sole purpose is to protect their family if they die while they’re working. They love their families and want to protect them but don’t see a reason to continue their coverage after they’ve retired. A better understanding of retirement and the versatility of life insurance may help them reconsider.
Retirement Is Different. Retirement marks a big transition in our clients’ lives. Not only is it a transition in how they spend their time, it is also a transition in how they use and manage their money. While they were working, they used salaries to pay expenses and add to their savings. With retirement, salaries and benefits end. Clients will need to rely on savings to supplement income from Social Security and other sources. Saving will be much more difficult.
Building on these savings throughout your working life can help to make a big difference in the amount of funds that you can use in your retirement period. To give you a higher chance of being financially stable during these years, some people decide to make some investments in things such as bonds, stocks and precious metals, like gold. Any investments that you make can be saved into your personal IRA, (you can learn more here) which could be used as your primary source of income as you will have to rely on other sources as a retiree. The more money you save, the better chance you have of being financially stable.
When clients retire, their financial priorities and risks often change. Essentially, most of them will be switching from “offense” to “defense.” They’ll need to take the savings they’ve accumulated and “defend” it to maintain their standard of living. During retirement the major financial fear will shift from losing a job to running out of money. Clients will be playing “financial defense.”
Because retirement is a fundamentally different phase of life, we need to plan for it carefully. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Focus on Spendable Income. After retirement, clients start converting assets into income. They can’t actually spend most of their retirement assets; they will need to convert them into cash first. Costs and taxes can be triggered as assets are converted into income. They can only spend what’s left over after those costs and taxes are paid. Retirement security will depend on how much net spendable income they’ll have and how long they can make it last.
They Could Be Retired for a Long Time. Today an average 65-year-old American man should live to 84, while an average American woman can expect to live to 86. Studies indicate that one in four 65-year-olds will live past age 90. These averages may increase in the future with medical and lifestyle advances.
Savings May Need to Last for Two Lives. If clients are married or committed to a partner, they won’t want loved ones to be financially vulnerable if something happens. When that’s the case, clients will need to manage assets to produce enough spendable income to last for two lives. Studies show that married couples tend to live longer. For the average 65-year-old couple, there is a 57 percent chance that at least one spouse will live to age 90, and an 11 percent chance one will live to age 100.
Unexpected Things Will Likely Happen. Today seems to be a time of constant, unpredictable change. As a result, plans will need to have a margin for safety. It’s impossible to know what will happen to the world, the economy, the investment markets, taxes or one’s family while retired. Events no one could anticipate will probably occur. Flexibility is critical for retirements that can last 30 years or longer. Without good contingency planning, retirement security (and that of a spouse or partner) could be at risk.
Driving in the Mountains. Many people are so anxious to get to retirement that they don’t think about what will happen during retirement. Think of planning for retirement as driving through the mountains. We begin driving up the road. We keep our foot on the gas to make it up the hills and around the curves. Gravity tries to slow us down, but we keep our foot down. We navigate around the trucks, trailers and construction as we climb up the mountain.
Eventually, we reach the summit and start down the other side. But the trip down is completely different from the trip up. Gravity is now pulling us down the mountain. We’re going faster and faster. We’re scared of losing control. We take our foot off the gas and switch over to the brake. To keep from flying off the road, we pump the brakes and maybe even shift to a lower gear. We just want to get to the bottom in one piece.
Retirement can be like driving in the mountains. Our clients work hard for 35-40 years to get up the mountain. In spite of ongoing inflation, they earn enough to create a lifestyle, raise a family and build a retirement reserve. They can’t wait to get to the top of the mountain and retire. But after they get there, things change. They have to start living on what they have saved. To pay retirement expenses, they have to start converting savings into cash. Inflation will act like gravity. It made it hard for them to save while working. In retirement, it will increase expenses and the rate at which they’ll use up savings. Yes, retirement will be a different environment. They’ll face different risks and have different priorities than when they were working.
Cash value life insurance is a financial product that may be able to help on both sides of the “retirement mountain.” If clients die before retiring, policy cash values may help the family through financial emergencies and policy death benefits may protect the family’s financial security. If they make it to retirement, cash value life insurance has the potential to continue a family’s security and also supplement retirement income.
A well-designed and managed cash value policy can potentially be a flexible source of money both for the client and the family. Policy cash death benefits are generally income tax-free under IRC Section 101, and cash values have the ability to grow income tax-deferred under IRC Section 72. Subject to the terms of the policy, cash values may be withdrawn income tax-free up to the policy’s tax basis, and additional cash values may be distributed through policy loans. (Policy withdrawals and loans reduce policy death benefits and increase the possibility that the policy could lapse.) These tax benefits increase the potential these policies have to help maintain financial security both before and during retirement.
Living Benefits. We know life insurance death benefits can help protect families. However, to fully understand how cash value life insurance can potentially make clients’ retirement planning easier, clients need to understand what benefits it can provide. Clients want to know: “How can a cash value policy help me?”
In addition to protecting beneficiaries, cash value policies have the potential to provide important living benefits. As policyowners, some of the possible living benefits clients could enjoy include:
Source of cash for financial emergencies. In the event of a financial emergency, a client could withdraw or borrow cash values from his policy. In fact, he could use policy cash values for a wide variety of financial needs, including home repairs, college expenses, business operations, debt repayment, damage from storms or natural disasters, etc.
Supplemental retirement income. While retired, he could withdraw or borrow policy cash values to supplement income received from other sources (e.g., Social Security and pension benefits). Cash value distributions can be income tax-free as long as the policy stays in force.
Funds to help pay critical illness and long term care costs. Many cash value policies allow death benefits to be distributed before death to pay qualifying medical and long term care costs. These are generally known as “accelerated death benefits.” They make it possible to pay critical illness and long term care costs without forcing the client to sell other assets.
Waiver of all or part of policy premiums. Some policies have provisions that require the insurance company to take over payment of all or part of the premiums during periods when the insured is disabled (within the terms of the policy). This provision helps keep the policy in force and maintains policy cash values during times when a client might not be able to continue it himself.
Protection of policy benefits from claims of creditors. Some states have laws that protect some or all of a policy’s death benefits and cash values from claims by creditors. These laws restrict creditors’ access to policies’ values and may prevent them from seizing the policy to pay off a debt. The type and amount of creditor protection varies from state to state. Tax and legal advisors should be able to provide information on how much creditor protection is available.
Death Benefits for Spouses and Partners. In addition to living benefits while the insured is alive, the income tax-free benefits paid out by cash value policies at death can make a big difference to those to whom a client is closest in life-his spouse or partner. Those benefits will:
Strengthen their financial security. No one wants to die and leave his spouse/partner in a precarious financial position. Unfortunately, this can easily happen. Events beyond our control can erode retirement savings. If a spouse is the beneficiary, policy death benefits could help restore some of the retirement savings spent because of:
Inflation. The cost of the goods and services rises regularly. Inflation could use up retirement savings more quickly than expected.
Medical expenses and nursing home costs. Being injured in an accident, suffering an unexpected illness or just getting old could trigger significant medical costs and nursing home expenses. To the extent not covered by insurance, those costs would have to be paid out of retirement savings.
Sub-par investment performance. Retirement savings may not grow as expected. Investment losses from recessions, economic cycles and poor decisions could reduce the financial resources left behind.
Unexpected property disasters.Accidents or natural disasters could damage or destroy homes and other physical assets. Remember hurricanes Katrina and Sandy? To the extent losses weren’t covered by insurance, victims had to use savings to rebuild and replace the lost property. Homeowners who had equity tied up in their homes would have used it to rebuild or replace the damaged property that was affected by these natural disasters. Older homeowners may decide to release their equity, hoping to add it to their retirement plan, only to need it to fix any issues not covered by insurance. Typically an equity release would be added to retirement finances to ensure that any payments or unexpected bills would be covered. Retiree homeowners could be able to use an online equity release calculator to discover how much of their home’s value would be released and added to their finances for future use.
Final expenses. Dying can be expensive. It will take cash to pay funeral costs, debts and estate administration expenses. The money spent to close a client’s affairs will reduce what’s left for the spouse/partner.
Clients need to protect their spouses and dependent family members after they’re retired, just as they did while working. The potential for financial loss doesn’t retire when the client does. Cash value life insurance has the potential to provide ongoing death benefit protection to keep families financially secure. The fact that death benefits are generally income tax-free increases their value.
Replace lost Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits end when we die. If one dies during retirement, the spouse may be able to choose either a Social Security benefit based on his own work record or the benefit the deceased was receiving. If not married, a partner doesn’t get to make this choice.
For example, suppose a client is receiving a $3,000 monthly Social Security benefit and the spouse is receiving a $2,000 per month benefit. That’s $5,000 in total. When the client dies, his benefit stops. His spouse will likely take over his $3,000 monthly benefit. Unfortunately, total monthly Social Security benefits will be reduced by 40 percent, from $5,000 to $3,000. That’s a reduction of $24,000 per year, and $240,000 if the spouse survives another 10 years.
The income tax-free death benefits from a life insurance policy may help reduce the impact of this reduction in Social Security income.
Fund the conversion of a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. Would you rather own a $250,000 traditional IRA or a $250,000 Roth IRA? In the event of your death, which type of IRA would your spouse and children want? Because Roth IRA distributions are generally income tax-free and don’t have to begin at age 701/2, most spouses would prefer to have a Roth IRA. If a client owns a traditional IRA when he dies and his spouse is the beneficiary, the spouse may be able to convert it to a Roth IRA. Life insurance death benefits may provide income tax-free funds to pay for the conversion.
As the IRA’s beneficiary, the spouse will have the ability to re-title it (roll it over) into his own name. As the account owner, the spouse may then elect to convert it into a Roth IRA. Of course, income taxes will need to be paid on the amount converted. The tax-free death benefits from a policy insuring the client may provide the cash needed to pay these income taxes. Other assets won’t need to be sold, nor will it be necessary to distribute money from the IRA to pay the taxes. Giving a spouse the opportunity to convert a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA should increase their financial security.
Minimize family conflicts in second marriages. When a parent remarries after a death or divorce, conflicts sometimes arise. Remarriage creates the potential for conflict between the new spouse and children from the first marriage. The children and the new spouse have different financial interests. The new spouse wants financial security, but the children don’t want the new spouse to take any of their inheritance. Animosity and ill will can easily develop. This is especially true if the new spouse is relatively young and has a long life expectancy. Do you remember the saga of Howard Marshall and Anna Nicole Smith? Life insurance on the remarried parent could provide the new spouse with financial security without threatening the children’s inheritance. Policy death benefits may help minimize financial conflicts between the new spouse and the children.
Death Benefits for Adult Children. What if a spouse/partner dies first or the client doesn’t have a “significant other”? How could life insurance help? In addition to the living benefits available to policyowners, policy death benefits could help surviving children or grandchildren. Some ways life insurance may help them include:
Leave the “right” inheritance. A client may want to leave children or grandchildren a specific inheritance, but may not want to change his lifestyle to do so. Life insurance coverage which continues during retirement may help. If the client has five children and wants to leave each one $100,000 when he passes on, he’ll have to refrain from spending $500,000 of his assets. As an alternative, he could purchase a $500,000 life insurance policy and divide the death benefit equally among the five children. All he would need to do is pay the policy premium. He wouldn’t need to set aside any other assets. Knowing that he has left the children what he wants, he could structure his will or trust to leave all remaining assets to charity.
Recover or replace income taxes. Many people save a significant portion of their retirement funds in IRAs, 401(k)s and other tax-qualified funds. These are popular retirement saving vehicles because contributions are made with pre-tax dollars and account earnings generally grow income tax-deferred. Unfortunately, distributions are fully taxable. We can only spend what’s left over after we’ve paid our federal (and sometimes state) income taxes. Depending on one’s marginal income tax bracket, somewhere between 15 and 40 percent of the account balance could be lost to taxes as distributions are received. Life insurance death benefits can potentially be used to recover some or all of these taxes. Policy death benefits can be paid to the family members to recover any income taxes paid to date, as well as those which may be due in the future as the account is distributed.
Increase the financial legacy of an unneeded IRA. Some of your clients may have built up balances in IRAs or other tax-qualified accounts which they may not need to use for retirement income. Because the growth in these accounts is income tax-deferred, they may want to pass them on to children or grandchildren. Unfortunately, all the distributions children and grandchildren eventually receive will also be fully taxable.
Life insurance may potentially help increase the amount children/grandchildren ultimately receive from the account. If insurable, a client could start taking distributions from the IRA after reaching age 591/2. After paying income taxes on these distributions, he could use the remainder to purchase a life insurance policy. This strategy is known as “Legacy Max” and it can be attractive when the policy death benefit exceeds the total net after-tax distributions the children are likely to receive from the qualified account. The amount of death benefit which may be purchased and its cost will depend on a number of factors, including age, health and finances.
Fund personal and charitable be-quests. Many clients have provisions in their wills directing executors/personal representatives to pay sums of money to friends, causes, charitable organizations and others who are important to them. These payments are known as “bequests.” Bequests reduce what is passed on to children. To make sure a bequest is paid, one must refrain from spending at least that amount of retirement savings. If our client’s will has bequests totaling $100,000, he should set at least $100,000 of the retirement savings aside to make sure it will be paid. Further, there will be $100,000 less for heirs to share.
Cash value life insurance policies may provide another way to pay the bequests we’d like to make. Suppose your client wants to leave $25,000 each to his college, his church, the Red Cross and the United Way. He simply purchases a $100,000 policy and names each of these organizations as 25 percent beneficiaries. If he decides to make a change in the future, he can file a revised beneficiary form. He won’t need to set aside a reserve to pay the bequests; the policy will essentially pay the bequests for him. His children will share the remaining estate.
Minimize conflicts between children. It’s not unusual for children to fight over money after a parent dies. Children often believe they are entitled to equal shares of their parents’ wealth. Sometimes, however, it may not make sense to divide a house, business, parcel of land or other asset into equal shares. Occasionally the nature of the assets and/or the children’s personal situations may make equal division unwise or impossible. In these situations, life insurance death benefits can provide additional funds to help equalize what the children receive. Policy death benefits could minimize these conflicts and hard feelings.
Special needs children. Children and grandchildren who are physically or mentally challenged can present difficult financial choices. If they survive the parents, they may need money to be financially secure. A client may need to set aside a large part of his estate for their care. If he doesn’t have enough, he can’t expect his other children or grandchildren to use their financial resources. They usually have their own families to support.
Life insurance may help provide funds to support challenged children for the balance of their lives. Policy death benefits can help pay their living expenses. If the child receives disability, health care or other benefits from federal or state governments, policy death benefits may be directed into a specialized trust designed to manage and distribute the death benefits without negatively impacting the government benefits. These are sometimes called “special needs trusts.”
Why Cash Value Life Insurance? “I like term insurance-why do I need cash value life insurance?” Term life insurance can be a good vehicle for providing short term death protection. Unfortunately, when death benefits are needed for an extended period of time, term insurance policies may not provide as much overall value. There are several strong reasons why cash value life insurance is often more likely to accomplish the client’s objectives:
Term insurance offers death benefit protection but doesn’t provide policyowners with some important living benefits. Most term policies only provide death benefit protection. They don’t have cash values that can be used for supplemental retirement income or financial emergencies. Consequently they may not provide as much value to insured owners. Term insurance can be similar to “renting” life insurance protection, while cash value insurance is similar to “owning” it.
Term life insurance provides temporary death benefit coverage. Many insurance companies structure their term insurance policies to end before normal life expectancy. It can be difficult to purchase term policies that guarantee coverage after age 80 or 85. Unfortunately, healthy people often live past 85; if they use term insurance, their coverage may expire before they do. Then they will have wasted their money. Some term insurance policies offer owners the option to convert to cash value insurance when the policy term is up, but the premiums on the converted policy are often extremely high. People who use term insurance and live past the term have nothing tangible to show for the premiums they paid.
It is also important to remember that just because someone wants life insurance coverage doesn’t mean he’ll be able to get it. Insurance companies only want to insure healthy people; they don’t want to pay out lots of death benefits. In their underwriting they carefully review each applicant’s health, family and financial situation. Then they decide how much (if any) coverage they are willing to offer and what price to charge for it. As clients grow older and become less healthy, insurers may be less likely to offer the coverage desired. If they do, the price will likely be higher.
Your Client’s Situation. Every family situation is different. Each client needs to have a flexible plan that fits him and his family. The table on page 26 is a summary of the issues discussed in this article. To build a plan that works for your client it should be helpful to him to consider the issues from a personal perspective. His spouse/partner’s input could be helpful. For each issue about which he is concerned, simply write in an approximate number for the death benefits that may be needed. Then total the amounts listed. This total will serve as a starting point for determining how much cash value life insurance might be appropriate.
Conclusion. Good retirements seldom happen by accident. They need to be carefully planned. To succeed, planning should reflect some key facts: (1) the focus needs to be on spendable income, (2) savings may have to last a long time (sometimes for two lives), and (3) over 30 or more years of retirement some unexpected things are likely to happen. Consequently, a plan needs to have a margin of safety. As clients come down the “retirement mountain,” they’ll need to play solid “financial defense” in order to protect their income and lifestyle over two lives. They will need to use flexible financial tools that can help them both before and after retirement.
Cash value life insurance is a financial product clients should consider. Its tax-advantaged cash values and death benefits have the potential to help clients and their families both before and after retirement. During the 30 or more years a person may be retired, life insurance has the potential to strengthen financial security and create a margin of safety for spouses, partners, children and grandchildren.
