Retirement planning

A new era in retirement of the unprepared is dawning, as the West’s golden age of pensions comes to an end, according to a report from HSBC Insurance Holdings, “The Future of Retirement: The Power of Planning.”

Franklyn Berkowitz is Director of Retail Financial Services at Astoria Federal. The parent company, Astoria Financial Corporation has assets of $17.7 billion and deposits totaling $11.5 billion in New York. Its 50 full-time FAs serve clients in New York City and its suburbs, an area with a bigger population than 38 states.

Marc Vosen is president and CEO of Key Investment Services, as well as the current president of BISA, the trade association for bank brokerage and bank insurance sales. More communication between advisor and client is key, he says, especially when the customer feels more in the loop.

Joseph F. Coughlin is the founder and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, a multidisciplinary research program created to understand the behavior of the 45 and over population. It considers the role of technology and the opportunity for innovations to improve the quality of life of older adults and their families.

Paul K. Stetter Jr. knows his clients' biggest fear is outliving their savings. Yet, the pragmatic Ephrata, Pa.-based financial advisor doesn't mince words when telling investors how much they'll need for retirement. Helping clients stay focused on saving is how the first vice president at Fulton Financial Advisors ensures he meets clients' best interest, as well as their retirement needs.

W. Scott Dixon, executive VP and financial advisor channel manager of SunTrust Investment Services, and Mark Davis, senior VP of Retirement Solutions at the Wealth Solutions Group at SunTrust Wealth & Investment Management help hundreds of advisors keep clients from losing sleep while planning for their later years. On average, retirees might depend on their investments for 20 or more years after the traditional retirement age of 65. And Dixon and Davis advise a slow, steady and rational way of helping clients invest a sufficient amount to meet their post-retirement financial needs.

We solicited opinions from around the industry with one overarching theme in mind: How can bank advisors better prepare their clients for retirement?

Divorce can have devastating financial consequences if you're not prepared.

The median annual cost of care in a private nursing home rose 3.4% over the past year to $77,745—far surpassing the $49,777 median annual household income for Americans, according to Genworth’s “2011 Cost of Care Survey.” And the cost of an assisted living facility rose 2.4% over the past year to $39,135.

Like they’ve done with every stage of their lives, the Baby Boomers are changing what it means to be retired. But unlike other stages where leading edge boomers set the path that middle and second-half boomers followed, retirement is likely to be transformed throughout the boomer generation in such a way that second-half boomers and the generations that follow will experience a very different retirement than their leading edge siblings.

And many are distrustful of unscrupulous financial services and insurance companies.

Near-retirees and retirees are very uncertain about their future, and many are afraid they will live in poverty, a survey of more than 300 Baby Boomers by Financial Engines found.

Lincoln Financial Group unveiled Lincoln InStep, an educational program for retirement plan participants designed to raise advisors awareness of products, services and strategies to help defined benefit contributors maximize their retirement savings investments.

Nearly 150 hand-picked and already highly successful Bank of America Merrill Lynch financial advisers next month will embark on what amounts to defined contribution retirement training boot camp at The Retirement Advisor University (TRAU) in pursuit of a Certified 401(k) Professional designation to further their DC expertise and differentiate themselves from other practitioners.

A perfect storm of eroding Social Security trust funds, high unemployment and a flood of Baby Boomers all hitting retirement age at the same time will put enormous strain on Social Security for the next two decades, forcing retirees and their advisers to come up with alternative retirement income plans and strategies to make ends meet.

More workers are delaying retirement, according to The Conference Board.

According to the 12th Annual survey from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies released on Tuesday, a substantial number of Americans are unprepared for retirement and many do not have a backup plan if they are forced into retirement earlier than planned.

Deciding what do to with an old 401(k) or other workplace retirement plan may not seem complicated, but a surprising number of participants do not understand which options are available to them, according to a survey by Fidelity Investments.

If financial advisors really want to increase the likelihood that their clients will commit to and execute on the retirement savings plans they've devised, they should ask less questions, use lots of simple visual aids and talk to them like eight-year-old children.

Fidelity gives investors side-by-side comparisons of options available to them when switching jobs.