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February 28, 2002 at 07:00 PM
NU Online News Service, Feb. 28, 2:07 p.m. – Owning long-term care insurance and getting help from professional financial advisors may have a dramatic effect on older U.S. residents’ satisfaction with retirement, according to a new analysis of survey data from the University of Michigan.
The analysis, conducted by RAND, Santa Monica, Calif., and sponsored by a unit of MetLife Inc., New York, reveals that 71% of the retirees who have private LTC insurance are satisfied with retirement, while only 57% of the retirees without LTC insurance are satisfied.
Similarly, 71% of the retirees who attend retirement planning meetings and 71% who say they have professional financial advisors are satisfied. Only 59% of the retirees who lack advisors and 55% who avoid planning meetings are satisfied.
Although retirees with higher incomes are somewhat more likely to have financial advisors and attend planning meetings, simply attending planning meetings appears to increase satisfaction levels by about 11% to 13% at any income level, RAND researchers write.
“For those in the $15,000 to $30,000 bracket, for example, that gain (to 67.9%) is enough to make them more satisfied with retirement than someone in the next higher income category who did not attend such a meeting (at 62.8%),” RAND researchers report. “The results for having purchased long-term care insurance and having a financial advisor hold up similarly.”
About 10% of the survey respondents had LTC insurance, 14% had financial advisors, and 25% attended retirement planning meetings, the researchers write.
