Understanding Pension Choices
How many of you have pensions that when you die, your spouse would lose all or part of the income? Is this really what you want? In many cases, when one consults with their pension provider, they are given the basic choices:
- Life only option
- Life only with guaranteed period certain
- Joint Survivor with a variety of survivor percentage options. In rare cares, a recapture option.
Total Potential Income
We feel there is more that needs to be discussed before making this irrevocable lifelong decision.
- John Doe pension participant age 65
- Jane Doe, Wife – Age 65
- Pension amount $3625 or $43,500 annually (if life only selected)
- John’s life expectancy age 90
In this scenario the total value of John’s hard work and effort during his career is $1,522,500. How did I get this number, you simply calculate $43,500 x 35 years, his life expectancy.
Here are the possible scenarios:
- John and Jane both live to age 90
- John dies prematurely leaving Jane income
- Jane dies prematurely
- John and Jane neither one live to age 90, but both die at 75
John and Jane meet with the benefit consultant and decide that it would be best to choose the joint survivor option that allow 100% of what he would receive, to go to her too in the event something happened to him. When one chooses this option, a lesser amount is paid.
Income at RISK
In this scenario it comes to $2718 per month. So now, let’s do some simple math. If both John and Jane live to life expectancy of age 90 and they recieve $2718 per month, they will forfeit $380,940 during their lifetime. This amount just left their control by simply making one decision. The scenario gets much worse if both John and Jane do not live to age 90. Suppose they both die at age 75, they would have only received $391,392 total income.
However we already calculated that his pension had a total lifetime value of $1,522,500, so what happened to the rest of the income. Well, John thought he made a good decision based on the limited information he had because he wanted to simply provide for the woman he loved in the event something happened to him. There are opportunities that will allow more control and prevent this outcome.
If you want to learn how you can:
- Not lose control of your choices
- Maximize the total dollar value of your pension
- Provide a potential legacy
Contact with us before you make your pension choice!