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Retirement Planning > Retirement Investing

Most Americans Fear Retirement, NAVA Survey Shows

By Trevor Thomas

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Almost all Americans say they have financial concerns about retiring, a recent survey finds.

The survey by the National Association for Variable Annuities, Reston, Va., found that 95% are uneasy about their financial situation in retirement. In addition, 42% feared either running out of money prematurely or having to trim back their lifestyle in retirement.

Among other worries: 28% were uneasy that high health care costs could drain their retirement savings quickly.

Just 9% feared that inflation would eat up much of their hard-earned retirement savings. The low level of concern probably stems from the relatively low general inflation rate in recent years, NAVA says.

Despite recent publicity about proposed Social Security reforms, relatively few seem worried about this issue. Only 16% said they were concerned about future Social Security payments.

NAVAs survey, “2005 Financial Retirement Fears,” also made these findings:

The financial fear weighing heaviest on the minds of those aged 18 to 34 was the premature depletion of retirement savings, cited by 24% in that age group.

Part-time workers across all age groups showed high concern about running out of money during retirement, almost 40% more than full-time workers in the survey.

Full-time workers aged 35 to 54 worried a great deal about being able to maintain their lifestyles in retirement. NAVA found 37% of Americans in the age group ranked the inability to keep up their current standard of living as one of their top two retirement fears.

“The results of this study underscore the need for Americans to structure their retirement plans different today than in years past, which means including provisions to ensure they will have enough retirement income to last the rest of their lives,” NAVA observed.

NAVA concluded that Americans could alleviate many of these concerns by buying annuities to provide a steady income in retirement.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 1, 2005. Copyright 2005 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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