Understanding what information is needed to analyze the usefulness of pension maximization is a vital component to making better policy decisions. The types of information required are presented in the following checklist:
- a determination of what survivor elections are available from the pension plan, including joint and full survivor, joint and two-thirds, etc.;
- a comparison of the monthly dollar amount payable from the pension plan under the preferred joint and survivor option and under the single life option;
- analysis of the current plan, including whether it provides cost-of-living increases and whether it requires a survivor election in order to maintain medical benefits if the participant predeceases the spouse;
- an assessment of the spouse’s health;
- an assessment of the participant’s health and insurability or rating classification;
- standard information for insurance policies, including name, sex, date of birth, smoker/nonsmoker, physicals, etc.; and
- generally, the amount of insurance required declines as the couple ages, so some form of declining coverage, such as some combination of level premium whole life and decreasing term or universal life should be considered.
Visit our Pension Maximization FAQs and learn what to analyze here.
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Reproduced with permission. Copyright The National Underwriter Co. Division of ALM