The Retirement Crisis No One Talks About
Nearly 40% of Americans say they couldn’t cover an unexpected $1,000 expense from savings, according to a 2023 Federal Reserve survey. Yet those same people are expected to fund 25 to 30 years of living expenses after they stop working. Social Security replaces roughly 40% of pre-retirement income for the average worker — far short of the 70% to 90% most financial planners say is needed.
Healthcare makes it harder. Fidelity’s 2023 analysis found that a 65-year-old couple retiring today should expect to spend an estimated $315,000 on healthcare over the course of retirement. Add in longevity risk — one in three 65-year-olds today will live past 90 — and the financial stakes of retirement planning have never been higher.
What Retirement Planning Actually Means
Retirement planning is not a single conversation. It’s an ongoing strategy that evolves with your life, your income, your family, and your goals. A comprehensive plan addresses five areas: building reliable income streams, managing healthcare costs, protecting against investment risk, preserving wealth for your family, and planning for the unexpected.
At OG Insurance HQ, we help individuals, families, and business owners connect these dots — looking at the full financial picture and building a strategy that holds together when life gets complicated.
The Five Pillars of Retirement Income
Social Security provides a cost-of-living-adjusted base, but when you claim matters. Claiming at 62 instead of 70 can permanently reduce your benefit by up to 30%. For couples, the lifetime benefit difference based on claiming strategy alone can run well into six figures.
Employer-sponsored retirement plans, individual retirement accounts, investment portfolios, and business assets round out the typical retirement income picture. For entrepreneurs and business owners, the company’s value is frequently their largest asset — and often the most underplanned one.
Common Retirement Planning Mistakes
Starting too late is the most common error. Underestimating healthcare comes second. And ignoring inflation is third — a 3% annual inflation rate cuts purchasing power roughly in half over 24 years. Consider a 58-year-old Dallas general contractor who had spent 30 years building a successful business but had less than $200,000 in personal retirement savings. His business was the plan. With seven years to work with, we helped him restructure, build personal retirement assets, and create a succession strategy that maximized what the business sale would ultimately deliver. Seven years was enough. Three probably wouldn’t have been.