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Nine Out Of Ten Retirees Confident They Can Pay For Future Health Care Costs

Recent survey (PDF)

Despite the rising costs of health care and the hits many retirement accounts took from the recession, a Nationwide Financial survey¹ reveals nine in ten retirees with at least $250,000 in household assets are not concerned about paying for their future health care costs.

Retirees and Boomers have differing opinions, according to the survey conducted by Harris Interactive¹ in January 2012:

• 90 percent of retirees say they are confident they can pay for their future health care costs
• Nearly half of Boomers nearing retirement say they are “terrified” of health care costs

One of the reasons retirees are confident in their ability to pay for health care costs may be that they are already doing it successfully. Also, many current retirees have pensions and employer-paid health care − a luxury most Boomers nearing retirement may not.

Also Boomers are facing numerous concerns as they approach retirement, including:

• They expect health care to be one of their biggest expenses
• Too many are failing to plan for inflation
• The looming risk of incurring an exceptionally large health care expenses

Retirees need guidance

Almost 40 percent of retirees want to understand Medicare coverage better, but few consider talking with their financial advisor about ways to handle health care costs in retirement.

There are many ways an advisor can help:

• They can re-access how rapidly to draw down their wealth during retirement
• They can do regular health care costs assessments to factor in inflation or any changes in their health
• They can suggest additional options for paying for health care costs in retirement

^{1 Data was collected via an online survey by Harris Interactive on behalf of Nationwide from Jan. 3-19, 2012. The survey was among 625 adults ages 55+ having $250,000 or more in household assets who plan to retire by 2020 and 625 retired adults ages 65+ having $250,000 or more in household assets. Results were weighted as needed for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, household income and investable assets. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. To see the entire survey, visit www.nationwide.com/healthcare.}

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