Retirement

Retirement will mark an exciting new phase of your life, when you can redefine what's important to you – and how you'd like to live.

To help make your ideal retirement a reality, there are several steps you should consider to better understand and manage your personal and financial situation.

• Immediate Steps to Consider Before You Retire
• Develop a Comprehensive Retirement Income Plan
• Manage Your Assets in Retirement
• Review Your Insurance Coverage
• Protect Your Assets and Create a Lasting Impact
• Keep Track of Financial Milestones

Immediate Steps to Consider Before You Retire

Once you have decided you are ready to retire, there are vital issues to consider and important actions to take as you plan the transition to retirement.

Steps to Consider

• Consider ways to protect your retirement savings, including debt reduction, emergency funds, and ensuring adequate insurance coverage.
• Creating a retirement income plan gives you a realistic estimate of your income and expenses, with the goal of not outliving your assets.
• When to apply for social security benefits may not be as simple as looking at the year you were born. There are multiple options that could impact the amount of social security income you receive over your lifetime.

Fidelity Solutions

• Review and complete our pre-retirement checklist as one of your first steps in preparing for retirement.

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Develop a Comprehensive Retirement Income Plan

Just as it was important to have a financial plan to help you reach retirement, you will now need to consider a well-thought-out approach to help make those assets last throughout retirement.

Steps to Consider

• Understand and minimize the five key risks to financial security that all retirees face to help ensure your money will last.
• Realistically estimate your retirement expenses and seek to ensure that you have a predictable income stream to cover them.
• Determine how much income you need to provide from your assets or additional sources of lifetime income.
• Potentially maximize your remaining savings and investments by establishing an investment mix that's right for your long-term needs.
• Establish an appropriate withdrawal strategy to help ensure that your assets last your lifetime.

Fidelity Solutions

• Read about the five key retirement risks and how to get started with retirement income planning
• Develop and implement a comprehensive, written retirement income plan using the Retirement Income Planner.
• Understand the options available to making your money last in retirement

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Manage Your Assets in Retirement

As your financial needs shift from saving for retirement to living in retirement, your money management needs will change as well.

Steps to Consider

• After developing your income plan, it's important to actively manage your finances to maintain the right mix of investments.
• Simplify the management of your finances by consolidating or rolling over your assets into one place.
• Consider professional investment help if you don't have the time, inclination, or experience to actively manage your assets in retirement.

Fidelity Solutions

• Conduct a yearly Portfolio Review to make sure your asset allocation strategy is in line with your income plan and goals. Please note that asset allocation does not ensure a profit or guarantee against loss.
• Consolidate your investments by Transferring Assets to Fidelity.
• Consider having Fidelity's investment professionals manage your portfolio for you using our Portfolio Advisory Services.

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Review Your Insurance Coverage

Protecting the health and financial security of you and your family is always important. As your retirement approaches, the protection provided by insurance becomes even more vital.

Steps to Consider

• Review your life insurance coverage. The loss or reduction of your retirement income could adversely affect your surviving spouse or family members. Life insurance can provide financial resources they will need during a difficult time.
  • Investigate retiree health care plan options from your current employer
  • Learn about Medicare eligibility requirements and coverage
  • Consider whether you need Medicare supplemental insurance
• Consider long-term care to supplement baseline Medicare coverage. Roughly 50% of Americans now turning age 65 will be admitted to a nursing home at some point in their lives. Long-term care insurance enables you to cover many of the costs of skilled, intermediate, and custodial assistance.
• Review and update your homeowner's insurance policy. Your home is probably your single most valuable asset. Protecting it from physical losses such as fire damage, or financial losses due to liability claims, is a key to the secure retirement you've worked so hard to achieve.

Fidelity Solutions

• Refer to our Resources & Seminars to learn about key Medicare information.
• Visit Fidelity's Insurance Center to investigate term life insurance choices and to see if you have adequate coverage.

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Protect Your Assets and Create a Lasting Impact

Regardless of your level of assets, ensure that they will be used to help the people and organizations that are most important to you.

Steps to Consider:

• Ensure you have an up-to-date estate plan and the foundation of your estate plan begins with a current will. If you don't have a suitable plan, state and federal laws will govern how your assets are distributed.
• Depending on your situation and the size of your estate, you may also want to consider establishing one or more Revocable Trusts.

Fidelity Solutions:

• Visit the Estate Planning Action Center^SM for information and tools to help you create or update your estate plan.
• Explore establishing a legacy for charities and causes that are important to you through the Fidelity^® Charitable Gift Fund^SM.

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Keep Track of Financial Milestones

As you approach retirement, you need to be aware of several very important financial milestones. By reviewing this age-related information in advance, you can plan on taking timely action.

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• Portfolio Review is an educational tool.
• Retirement Income Planner is an educational tool developed and offered for use by Strategic Advisers, Inc., a registered investment adviser and a Fidelity Investments company.
• The Fidelity^® Charitable Gift Fund^SM ("Gift Fund") is an independent public charity with a donor advised fund program. Various Fidelity companies provide non-discretionary investment management and administrative services to the Gift Fund.