Risk Management
Building a retirement plan that lasts means more than growing your savings. It means protecting them.
Most retirement conversations focus on accumulation: how much to save, where to invest, and when to retire. Far fewer conversations focus on protection, such as what happens to your plan when markets decline, when healthcare costs spike, or when a long-term care need arrives unexpectedly. For families across Des Moines, West Des Moines, and the Dubuque tri-state area, those risks are real and worth planning for before they arrive.
At RetireRight, risk management is a core part of how we build retirement plans for Iowa and Midwest families. A plan that does not account for what can go wrong is not a complete plan. Here is how we approach it.
The families who retire with confidence are not just the ones who saved the most. They are the ones whose plan was built to hold up when life did not go as expected.
Market Risk and Sequence of Returns
Market fluctuations are inevitable. What matters is how your plan is structured to handle them, particularly in the years just before and just after you retire.
One of the most significant and least understood retirement risks is sequence of returns risk. Even if your portfolio earns a reasonable average return over a 20-year retirement, the order in which those returns arrive matters enormously. A significant market decline in your first few years of retirement, when you are withdrawing from your portfolio rather than contributing to it, can permanently damage your plan in ways that strong returns later cannot fully recover.
We build retirement portfolios with this reality in mind. That means diversification across asset classes, income sources that do not depend entirely on market performance, and a withdrawal strategy designed to protect your core savings during volatile periods. We monitor your portfolio on an ongoing basis and make thoughtful, measured adjustments rather than reactive ones driven by short-term fear.
Related Reading: Which Retirement Account Should I Withdraw From First?
Healthcare Risk and the Medicare Gap
Healthcare is consistently one of the largest and most unpredictable expenses in retirement. Yet most retirement plans treat it as an afterthought rather than a line-item worth planning around carefully.
For families who retire before age 65, there is an immediate challenge: how do you cover healthcare costs during the gap between your last employer coverage and Medicare eligibility? Going without coverage is not an option, and individual market insurance can be expensive. Building a specific plan for that bridge period, whether through COBRA, marketplace coverage, or a health sharing arrangement, is a meaningful part of retirement risk management.
Beyond the Medicare gap, out-of-pocket costs in retirement can be high even with Medicare coverage. Medicare Part B and Part D premiums, supplemental coverage, dental, vision, and prescription costs all add up. For families in Iowa and across the Midwest, factoring realistic healthcare costs into your retirement income projections from the beginning produces a more honest and more durable plan.
Long-Term Care Planning
Statistically, more than half of people turning 65 today will need some form of long-term care during their lifetime. The cost of that care, whether in-home assistance, assisted living, or skilled nursing, can be substantial and can arrive at a time when your ability to adjust your financial plan is limited.
Long-term care planning is one of the most important and most commonly overlooked pieces of retirement risk management. The families who plan for it early have significantly more options than those who address it reactively. Options include traditional long-term care insurance, hybrid life insurance policies with long-term care riders, and self-funding strategies that set aside dedicated assets for potential care needs.
For Iowa families, the cost of long-term care tends to be more manageable than in higher-cost states, but it is still significant enough to deserve a place in your plan. We help clients understand their options and make a decision that fits their health picture, their family situation, and their overall financial plan.
Life Insurance and Income Protection
Life insurance plays a different role in retirement than it does during your working years. During accumulation, it protects your income. In retirement, it protects your spouse's income, helps equalize an estate, or provides a tax-efficient vehicle for leaving a legacy.
The right coverage depends entirely on your situation. Some families have adequate coverage through existing policies. Others find that their coverage no longer fits their needs as they approach retirement. We review your current policies as part of the planning process and make recommendations based on what actually serves your goals, not what generates a commission.
Frequently Asked Questions
Risk management raises questions that are worth asking before you need the answers. Below are some of the ones we hear most often.
What is Sequence of Returns Risk and Why Does it Matter?
Sequence of returns risk refers to the danger that poor market returns in the early years of retirement can permanently damage your portfolio, even if long-term average returns are acceptable. When you are withdrawing money each year, and markets decline sharply, you are selling assets at low prices to fund living expenses. That reduces the number of shares available to recover when markets rebound. A retirement plan built with sequence of returns risk in mind uses diversification, a thoughtful withdrawal strategy, and income sources that do not depend entirely on market performance to reduce this exposure.
How Much Does Long-Term Care Cost in Iowa?
Long-term care costs vary significantly depending on the type of care and the specific location within Iowa. In-home care tends to be less expensive than assisted living, which is less expensive than skilled nursing facility care. Iowa's costs are generally more affordable than national averages, but the expense is still significant enough to warrant planning. The earlier you address long-term care in your retirement plan, the more options you have and the lower the cost of those options tends to be.
Do I Need Life Insurance in Retirement?
It depends on your situation. If your spouse depends on your Social Security benefit or pension income, life insurance can help replace that income if you pass first. If you have significant assets you want to pass to heirs in a tax-efficient way, certain life insurance structures can serve that purpose. And if you have outstanding debts or dependents who rely on you financially, coverage remains important. We review your existing policies and your overall plan to determine whether coverage is still serving its intended purpose and whether any adjustments make sense.
Is Your Financial Plan Prepared for Life’s Uncertainties?
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