Amerus Financial Group Blog

Beyond the Numbers: Building a Health-First Retirement Plan That Actually Works Most retirement calculators spit out a magic number – maybe it's $1.2 million or $2.5 million – but what happens when you hit 72 and need $8,000 monthly just for prescription drugs? At Amerus Insurance Group , we've watched too many families realize their retirement 'number' didn't account for the reality of aging in America, where healthcare costs can consume 30-40% of retirement income. The Fatal Flaw in Traditional Retirement Math Here's what happens when you calculate retirement like it's 1985: you assume healthcare costs will grow at general inflation rates (around 3% annually), but medical inflation has averaged 6.5% over the past two decades according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means healthcare expenses double every 11 years instead of every 23 years. We've seen clients who diligently saved 15% of their income for 30 years only to discover their ...

The 3-Phase Retirement Income Crisis We Just Solved for Sarah (Case Study) Last month, a 58-year-old teacher named Sarah walked into our office with a retirement plan that looked solid on paper but had three critical gaps that could have cost her $200,000 in lifetime income. Her story reveals exactly why traditional retirement advice fails - and how we rebuilt her strategy using a systematic annuity approach that guarantees her income for life. The Setup: What Looked Like Success Was Actually Financial Quicksand Sarah had done everything right according to conventional wisdom. She'd maxed out her 403(b) for 15 years, built a $380,000 balance, and planned to retire at 62 with Social Security plus her savings. Her financial advisor had her in a balanced portfolio earning 7% annually - the classic 60/40 approach that's supposed to work for everyone. But when Amerus Insurance Group ran our retirement income analysis, we found three dangerous assumptions that could derail her en...