retirement planning

Congratulations: You have a retirement plan!

You've worked hard on your retirement plan. You invested steadily in your 401(k). You've talked to financial planners and CPAs. Maybe you set up a trust with your estate planning attorney. Perhaps your children have moved on and are (barely) making a living on their own.

But have you thought of everything?

Here are a couple of things that you may not have considered. We will be adding more as time allows. Feel free to share your experiences with us and we will post them with your permission.

Your Retirement Bonus
Many people in their 60s and 70s have an asset worth many thousands of dollars and they are not even aware of it. This unknown asset is their life insurance policy! That's right. These life insurance policies have become so valuable that rich investors have created a secondary market for them. It's called the life settlement market, estimated by Deloitte Consulting LLP to grow to over $100 billion.

Rule 1: Don't sell your life insurance policy! Why should rich investors receive this payout when you die? Why not your children? If you can afford the payments, there is no better way to leave your children money than with a life insurance policy. If you don't believe this, take a look at our case study.

On the other hand, if you can't afford the payments, or if you have no children or other beneficiaries to whom you want to leave the money, then make sure to follow Rule 2.

Rule 2: Ignore Rule 1! By no means do you want to just let your policy expire by stopping payments. Nor do you want to take the small settlement that the life insurance company may give you for your policy. If you truly have no use for the policy, or if you can't afford it, then you absolutely must get a valuation of the policy before you take any other action (including letting it expire)!

Your Pot of Gold
Your retirement nest egg is your pot of gold. Don't let it become a pot of bricks! When you were putting money into your 401(k) for all those years, you may not have had a lot of investment options. But now that you are getting ready to roll it over (or maybe you already have) into your personal investment account, you have a lot of decisions to make about how to allocate your funds.

You have probably talked to investment advisors, financial planners, and CPAs. They may have helped you develop an asset allocation strategy and investment portfolio that was perfect for your situation at the time. But, if you made these decisions over a year ago and have not re-visited your assumptions and rebalanced your assets at least quarterly, you could be losing thousands of dollars.

If you do not have the time or expertise to manage a portfolio of hundreds of thousands of dollars, you might want to consider hiring a money manager who does this as a full-time profession. We work with managers who have made their clients millions of dollars, and they work for as low as 1%. If you want to talk with one of these experts, feel free to drop us a line.