Preserving Your Retirement Assets

Is there too much risk in your retirement plan? A new MassMutual Retirement Savings Risk Study claims that a lack of understanding about risk has led some retirees and workers within 15 years of retirement to focus more on growing, rather than preserving, their assets.

For instance, 59 percent of preretirees and 32 percent of retirees describe their primary investment strategy as focused on either “aggressive growth” or “moderate growth.” In addition, 32 percent of preretirees and 49 percent of retirees characterized their investment mix as a balance between growing and preserving their savings.

But preretirees say they plan to become substantially more conservative when they retire, with 43 percent of them saying they expect to be primarily focused on asset preservation when they retire. The problem: In the event, just 23 percent of retirees said they were focused on asset preservation at that time.