Monday, September 20, 2010

Puritan Financial Group: Retirement Planning Obstacles Women Encounter

Many female workers and retirees feel that the financial service industry isn’t doing them justice. Many feel ignored by their investment planners, while others aren’t happy with the advice or aid they get, based on findings from a survey by The Boston Consulting Group. As investors, a number of women even feel that the entire industry is an obstacle, and not a clear path, to good investment advice that will hopefully result in a stable nest egg. Aside from the services provided by financial firms, experts also found that women are unhappy with the industry due to problems with financial products, as well as managing one’s finances with the “married” mentality.

Experts say that the financial services industry may force retirement strategies and formula developed for men onto women clients. The issues of life expectancy and income come into play here: on average, women earn less and live longer. This can become a problem if an aggressive strategy or product meant to augment a nest egg to last two decades of a male client’s retirement is used in the financial plans of a female client who may live beyond that. To this issue, advisers focused on women’s finances recommend higher-risk investments while the clients are young.

As a female investor ages, lower-risk or conservative investments must become a larger part of one’s portfolio. The problem is, financial planners or investment advisors may fail to offer annuities and long-term health care coverage – products that can prove to be useful to women retirees. Experts recommend that female investors look into conservative products meant for the longer term if they’re nearing retirement.

Many investment planners also quip that most married women bank on the savings of their partners to bear the brunt of their retirement expenses – this can be a problem down the road, as statistically, women have a bigger chance of flying solo in retirement, making a personal investment plan even more important. To this, professionals recommend automatic deposits into personal brokerage accounts or retirement plans, instead of mainly focusing on plans shared with partners.

This review was brought to you by Puritan Financial Group. Puritan Financial Group is owned by Puritan Financial Companies, based in Dallas TX. Puritan Financial Group is a leading provider of financial solutions for clients beginning in their peak earning years and continuing through retirement, helping them to accumulate, protect and transfer wealth.

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