Workers Want Advisors to Help Nurse Health Costs in Retirement

The closer workers are to retirement, the more likely they are to work with a financial advisor, a new survey has found.

Workers want advisors to help them in the face of rising health care costs and long-term care needs, according to the latest research published this week by the Employee Benefits Research Institute and Greenwald & Associates.

With Medicare and prescription drug premiums rising, workers are unsure of how much money they need in retirement.

Planning for and approaching health care costs later in life appear to be tinged with fear.

“All those issues play into being concerned about that, and it’s only going to grow because nothing seems to be slowing down health care costs,” said Craig Copeland, EBRI senior research associate and co-author of the 2018 Retirement Confidence Survey.

• Nearly one in two (45 percent) workers expects to work with a financial professional if they have not yet done so as they approach retirement, the survey of 1,002 workers found.
• Nearly three in ten (28 percent) workers report that they and their spouse have ever worked with a professional advisor, researchers found.

Very few workers – only one in five – have calculated how much money they will need to cover health expenses in retirement, the survey found.

Workers Unsure of Advisors Until Working With One

Despite significant doubt among workers in their ability to face health care costs in retirement, workers view advisors like voters view elected representatives – with a healthy dose of skepticism, except when it comes to their own advisor.

Nearly three-quarters of workers with an advisor say they trust their advisor to make the right choices, the survey found.

But workers overall are divided about whether an advisor will ensure that clients can achieve a secure retirement.

Some workers prefer to plan and invest themselves instead of paying for an advisor and other workers remain wary in the wake of the debate around the fiduciary standard of care, said Lisa Greenwald, co-author of the report.

Workers were asked how confident they were that financial advisors would do the right thing to ensure a client’s secure retirement:

• 7 percent were very confident
• 43 percent were somewhat confident
• 40 percent were not too confident
• 10 percent were not confident at all

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Writer Cyril Tuohy has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at cyril.tuohy@innfeedback.com.

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