Are you making the right moves now to ensure you win the retirement game?
A retirement strategy without a long-term care plan is at risk of being checkmated by medical costs, often with devastating results for couples. Planning ahead for the inevitable rise in medical expenses is just one challenge facing retirees, and requires a strategic interactive approach.
That’s the advice in Reid Abedeen’s new book, “The Mathematics Of Retirement: How To Safeguard Your Future,” which I had the honor of editing.
“The statistics show that as we age, the odds are that more than 50 percent of people will need care at some stage of the game,” says Abedeen, a managing partner at Safeguard Investment Advisory Group with over two decades of experience helping retirees manage their investments.
“That potentially puts all your hard work and planning up for grabs and could devastate the surviving spouse’s lifestyle moving forward.”
In the book, Abedeen utilizes chess as a metaphor to provide a strategic framework for navigating the complexities of modern retirement planning. Abedeen’s core thesis emphasizes that retirement planning is not a “set it and forget it” endeavor, but an interactive process requiring mathematical discipline.
He introduces “The Safeguard Planning Playbook,” a ten-move strategy designed to mitigate common financial “gambits” that jeopardize long-term security. Each move covers a topic like risk management, tax mitigation, and exposing hidden fees.
Move number six: “Do You Have a Long-Term Care Plan?”
“You can do all the right things. You can save, invest, pay less in taxes, and do a Roth conversion. But when a major health crisis occurs, all of that may not prepare you,” warns Abedeen.
Each chapter in The Mathematics Of Retirement includes practical advice, and Abedeen goes into the options available for long-term care, outlying the differences between traditional insurance, annuities, and life insurance.
Subsequent moves cover legacy planning, beneficiary designations, and protection against identity theft and sophisticated scammers who target retirees.
Ultimately, long-term care is just one part of the strategy. Abedeen insists financial plans must stay dynamic, requiring regular strategy sessions to monitor future trends, and adjust for technological, medical, or policy shifts that occur over decades.
“Planning for long-term care is analogous to a chess match,” Abedeen says in the book. “If you are too narrowly focused and don’t plan well, you’re going to leave room for life to deliver countermoves.”