‘Your health, your retirement’ on the Money for Life web app

It’s a fact of life. As we get older, our health changes. So do the associated costs—which make preparing for emerging health needs an important part of your clients’ retirement plan.

The ‘Your health, your retirement’ resource on the Money for Life web app takes a sometimes sensitive, often complex subject and breaks it into three client-friendly topics, helping you have those necessary conversations about health-care needs and solutions in retirement.

1. Why health?

In this section, an approximately four-minute whiteboard video shows clients the ‘5 stages of care’* typically experienced with aging in retirement:

  1. independence,
  2. interdependence,
  3. supportive living,
  4. crisis management, and
  5. dependence.

Throughout these stages, your clients’ medical, physical and personal care needs will change, resulting in greater health-care costs. And while government programs may help with some expenses, they won’t cover everything. This is why making a financial plan that provides for health-care needs in retirement is so important. Use this animated video as a conversation starter for holistic discussions.

2. How does health impact retirement?

This section of the web app will show you potential dollar amounts associated with each stage of care in today’s dollars as well as the costs 10, 20 and 30 years from now (this is done in real time by clicking on the arrow icons in the chart). For many clients, these numbers will be an eye-opener, highlighting the need to plan ahead.

A case study about ‘Paul and Lily’ and their 21-year journey through the 5 stages of care (showing the care decisions they make with their family and how their monthly health-care expenses grow from $215 to over $12,000) will also get clients thinking – and working with you to address their own retirement journey. Click the question mark icon within each stage to access the case study details.

Additional resources in PDF format are also just a click away, including:

  • a booklet featuring Paul and Lily’s case study.
  • a one-page flyer called ‘Your health in retirement’ about the 5 stages of care. Use this flyer as a complement or alternative to the 5 stages of care whiteboard video.

3. What can you do to protect against the health risk?

This section is all about solutions, featuring an interactive health-risk matrix that shows how self-funding and health insurance products from Sun Life Financial can help manage health-care costs throughout retirement.

To activate this section, you can simply move the slide bar below the health-risk matrix from left to right. As you move this bar, you’ll encounter four ‘stops’ along the retirement journey. Each stop relates to the financial resources clients will typically use when self-funding various health-care expenses:

  • income floor (for expected health expenses),
  • lifestyle assets (for minor or temporary health expenses),
  • emergency fund (for moderate health expenses), and
  • liquidated assets (for major health expenses).

At the fourth stop on the matrix, you’ll activate a box called ‘Protecting with health insurance’ which identifies three insurance solutions:

  • personal health insurance,
  • critical illness insurance, and
  • long-term care insurance.

By selecting one, two or all three, you can show clients how different types of health insurance can cover their costs and add to a self-funded approach or address the risk of any gaps.

More information

A sound retirement plan – one that helps clients retire with confidence – involves health-care solutions. Get the Money for Life web app now, available from your Sun Life Sales Director. Start using the ‘Your health, your retirement’ tool on the Money for Life web application by signing in through www.sunlifeglobalinvestments.com or www.sunlife.ca/advisor.

For more information about health insurance products from un Life Financial, visit www.sunlife.ca/advisor or contact your Sun Life Sales Director.

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*The 5 stages of care were developed by Dr. Mark Frankel and his team at Taking Care Inc.