Retirement Planning

In today’s highly-competitive marketplace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract and retain top talent. Salary is no longer the sole compensation driver. Employees are also looking at an employer’s overall benefits package and its potential to help protect their families and adequately prepare them for retirement. These concerns are heightened by ever-changing tax laws, pension plan uncertainties, and Social Security shortfalls. As a business owner, you can offer insurance and retirement benefits that can make a difference for both your executives and your business.1

Providing for your employees’ retirement income plan or at least life insurance with a retirement plan can create a loyal and dedicated community around your business. A variety of retirement-planning products exist to provide the benefits that support your employees’ commitment to your business.

Consider a few of the following retirement income plan options.

Annuities

Establishing an individual retirement income plan funded by annuities is easy for small business owners. It may also help you and your employees achieve your retirement savings objectives.

When you get an annuity, you are getting a contract between you and an insurance company. You will be giving the insurance company a series of payments and in return, you will receive regular disbursements. This could happen either immediately or at a later date in the future. 

An annuity is useful for getting a consistent stream of income from the time a person retires from his career. There is a tax-deferred basis from which the funds will accrue. It is similar to 401k in a sense since the recipient will only be able to withdraw it once without any fee - when the person reaches 59 ½ years of age. 

There is an option to avail of the immediate annuity or the annual annuity. Aside from that, there is also an option to select a lifetime annuity or a limited-time annuity. 

Just as the name suggests, a lifetime annuity is a retirement income plan that enables you to receive disbursements for the rest of your life. But you have to take note that since the recipient will receive disbursements for quite a long time, the amount of each check might start to decrease. Limited-time annuity means one can choose to receive disbursement up to a certain number of years. 

Disability Income Insurance

Disability income insurance can replace a portion of an employee’s earnings in the event of a disability. It can also help protect an employee’s ability to plan and save for retirement.

The disbursements are typically given every month so that the disabled employee will be able to afford his expenses and live a normal life despite his inability to be employed. 

Disability insured income is designed in a way that the previous work income of the policy owner can be replaced. The employee will receive 45% and 65% of his previous income tax-free. 

It is important to take note that there is a waiting period from the time of disability that the employee has to wait for before he can receive a disbursement from this insurance policy. 

Life Insurance

Learn how life insurance can supplement your employees’ retirement planning strategy to help align with the goals of their golden years.

Life insurance is a form of financial support to families in case the owner of the life insurance passes away. You will pay the premiums either monthly, quarterly, or annually on behalf of your employees. 

With that, if something happens to them, their families will not suffer financially. Life insurance can also be useful in case the employee or any of his beneficiaries suffer from any major or minor illnesses through financial support carried by the life insurance. 

The best policy to give to your employee is life insurance with a retirement plan. Part of the premium that you will be paying the insurance company will be deposited to stock investments. These stock investments are to be handled by some of the industry’s top stock experts. Hence, there is huge profit potential. The money could double in the long-term serving as a retirement fund for your employee. 

Long-Term Care Insurance

Long-term care insurance helps protect an employee’s assets and retirement plan and is part of a complete financial strategy.

With long-term care insurance, an employee will be protected from the aches of old age. The employee will enjoy nurse-home care, home health care, or daycare for the elderly once he reaches the age of 65 and beyond. 

This will be useful if the employee suffers from an illness during his elderly years that requires a lot of supervision. Long-term care insurance will help pay for out-of-pocket expenses required in hospitals. 

Hospital expenses can significantly deplete a person’s savings. Hence, when offering this kind of insurance as a work benefit to potential employees, you will have an edge in their work options. 

Retirement Plans

Reward and attract talent to your company by helping them prepare for retirement. A wide range of group retirement products and services can help you maintain a long-term retirement strategy.

Know that each of the mentioned insurance policies has its own set of strengths and limitations. The best policies to offer your employees could vary on multiple factors, all of which our team would be more than willing to aid you with. There might also be cases when two or more of these policies are best offered together for the staff. 

There may be implications under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) depending on how certain types of insurance policies are made available to employees and whether such an arrangement constitutes an “employee benefit plan” under ERISA. Employers should consult their tax and legal advisors for further information on potential ERISA implications.

Distributions under the policy (including cash dividends and partial/full surrenders) are not subject to taxation up to the amount paid into the policy (the cost basis). If the policy is a Modified Endowment Contract, policy loans and/or distributions are taxable to the extent of gain and are subject to a 10% tax penalty. Access to cash values through borrowing or partial surrenders can reduce the policy’s cash value and death benefit, increase the chance the policy will lapse and may result in a tax liability if the policy terminates before the death of the insured.