Avoiding Retirement Hazards

Avoiding Retirement Hazards
by Takara Alexis

As health care costs keep rising dramatically all of the time, employers are also shifting more weight of the prices onto their employees. Many companies are starting to drop retired workers from their health plans, and on top of that, millions of Americans have no form of coverage at all.

So one of the most common mistakes made in retirement, is a lack of preparation for the financial impact of your health. One very overlooked and most expensive costs is long-term healthcare. Long-term health costs can be devastating to a financial plan, so buying long term care insurance early on can assist with minimizing its costs severely.

A typical assumption is that you should have enough retirement assets to last you until your life expectancy is reached.

But today, the world is always going through changes. As medical technology goes up along with life expectancy, the odds are good that at least you or your spouse will live past age 90. So it is vital that you are prepared to live longer.

Your generation is famous for working extra long, hard and abnormal hours to try to get ahead. And most baby boomers agree that they will be working long into retirement. But that could be one of the biggest retirement mistakes you make.

As of now, the average age of retirement in America, is 62. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute Retirement Confidence Survey of 2007, among retirees who had to leave the workforce earlier than they wanted to, 28% did so because of disability, 28% because of layoffs or corporate restructuring and 25% to care for a spouse or family member. So even if you decide to work as long as you can, it may not always be possible and it's vital that you plan and save for such a scenario.