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The benefits of know about your benefits

aadmin — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 19:50:42 +0000

While reaching your 65^th birthday is hardly the guaranteed sign of retirement it once was, it is still an age that means change for your group benefits and health insurance. When approaching retirement make sure you know how your group and individual insurance will change whether you are working full time, part time or doing what you want on your own time. A few minutes going over your policy fine print will save you from unwanted surprises in the future.

If working full time:

At age 65 many benefits change. Group life insurance and accidental death and disability insurance benefits commonly decrease by half at age 65, even if you are still working full-time. It is a good time to evaluate what individual life insurance you have and what you will need.

Most individual disability insurance policies will remain the same if you still work a certain number of hours per week; however, you need to inform the insurance company of your status. Past age 65, the benefit period for a claim commonly drops to two years.

Some individual disability and critical illness policies also have provisions that allow you to convert the policies to long term care policies, as your focus changes from income replacement to funding potential future care.

For both personal and group plans, out of country travel coverage usually changes at age 65, decreasing by either the length of travel covered or the amount payable. (If you rely on your credit card for travel insurance read the fine print on that policy as well. Each card is different, but for most cards the terms of coverage change at age 65.)

If retiring:

Know what you can take with you. In most cases, your workplace group life insurance can be converted to a personal policy when you retire or leave a company.

Investigate what government plans will cover so that you get the health insurance coverage that you need. And if you have a spouse with his or her own workplace plan, see if that plan can pick up where yours is dropping off.

Apply for a personal health insurance plan right away. If you apply for coverage within 60 days of leaving a group insurance plan, minimal or no medical proof of insurability is required by most companies. Your current insurance carrier may offer a plan, but you can look into options from other insurance companies as well.

If working part time:

Don’t assume working fewer hours but staying with the company means that you will still be entitled to the group insurance coverage. Most employee plans require you to work a minimum hours per week to be eligible for benefits. Know that number before you make the switch to part-time hours. Choose your schedule accordingly if you want to keep those benefits in force.

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6 Job Search Tips for the 50+ Crowd

aadmin — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 14:26:48 +0000

If you are over 50 years old, and looking for employment, you have your work cut out for you. You're up against a plethora of recent college graduates also looking, and even though employers can't legally engage in age discrimination, it still happens. In fact, ExecuNet, an executive-level membership website, reports that a vice president over age 50 requires 20% more time to land a position than someone at the same level in their early- to mid-forties. So if you're dusting off your resume, keep these tips in mind to accelerate your job search:

1. Learn How to Network on Social Media
Even if you've never liked or followed someone on Facebook or Twitter, now is the time to use social media for networking. Use LinkedIn to look for industry influencers in your niche, participate in a few conversations, and get the networking ball rolling. Also, check out The Water Cooler group at the AARP website for more networking tips and resources.

2. Use the Right Online Job Search Sites
CareerBuilder and Monster are great, but in order to save time, focus on websites designed specifically for an older population. Try Employment For Seniors, the Mature Workers Community Channel at the DiversityWorking website, and The Senior Community Service Employment Program located at the AARP website.

3. Carefully Consider a Career Coach
Career coaches aren't always necessary, but sometimes their knowledge and skills are exactly what you need to land a job. If you'd like a refresher course on interviewing or job searching, or if you're thinking about switching careers, go ahead and seek out professional help. Career coaches can look over your resume, identify strengths and weaknesses, and provide actionable tips for improving your job search.

4. Embrace Your Age
There's no point in trying to hide your age, and doing so may actually hurt your job search. Instead, embrace the advantages your experience has to offer. When interviewing for a position, play up your achievements and draw on your years of work to highlight your knowledge and skills. There are in fact many benefits to hiring older workers.

5. Continue Your Education
No, you don't have to go back to school to enroll in a degree program, but showing potential employers that you're a lifelong learner doesn't hurt. Seek out new certifications or continuing education credits within your field to show hiring managers that you're ready, willing, and able to expand your horizons and develop new skills. Courses in technology are particularly helpful. Do an Internet search for certifications in your field to see what's available.

6. Know How to Ace the Interview
While it's good to build a rapport with the hiring manager, keep the discussion focused on professional matters, rather than personal ones. When conversations get overly personal, it's easy to let information slip, such as a recent illness, that could work against you when the manager makes his or her hiring decision. Make an interview go smoothly by practicing with friends, family members, or a career coach before the big day.

When it comes to landing a job, don't underestimate the power of your resume. Unless you have recent, relevant experience in resume creation, go ahead and pay to have it professionally written. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, and there's no reason to cut corners on this important job search tool.

What job search tips do you have for the 50 plus crowd? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Top Boomer Job Trends for 2014

aadmin — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 08:39:30 +0000

The work landscape for boomers promises to be unconventional in 2014. Employment trends have transformed, leaving middle-aged people with more alternatives and difficult choices. Change leads to challenges. Boomers face the spectre of ageism as younger wage earners enter the job market.

Boomer Entrepreneurship as a Necessity

Sarah Baldwin, from Highland Park, IL, is a creative freelancer and blogger in support of struggling boomers at Kool-aid Rehab for Bright-eyed Entrepreneurs. “There’s a perception that experienced people are too expensive to hire,” she said. “So the price of great talent is going down.”

To escape the inevitable onslaught of younger cheaper talent, Baldwin decided to work for herself. “I became an entrepreneur by necessity,” she said. “There are no opportunities for boomers.” She has partnered her talents with a company specializing in recovery wear, Goodnighties.com. The freelance marketer liked its product so much, she arranged to become its exclusive marketing and sales rep.

It was a deal made in the trenches. But Baldwin had special reasons to align with the online company offering recovery night wear for women with body temperature issues – over 40-years-olds or those undergoing chemotherapy.

Baldwin had suffered from sleeplessness and found the company’s product line beneficial for her. Goodnighties.com is still a work-in-progress, but Baldwin is working hard to promote a product of personal interest. “It’s make your own way,” she said. “Boy is it hard.”

Sabbaticals for Successful Boomers

Bill Van Eron – CMO of Headwaters Marketing – was born in 1946 in the first wave of boomers. He works out of Fort Collins, CO, in strategic PR and integrated research and communications for high-profile clients like Hewlett-Packard.

Over the past year, he has transformed his work and personal goals by capping recruitment with new clients. At 67, he has taken a partial sabbatical or GAP year. Similar to Baldwin, he advocates personal business values.

“People need to depend on a special sense of trust,” he said. On a practical level, Van Eron feels the pressure of a new, upcoming generation. “I don’t want to compete with young college grads and their cool design firms when I can re-envision my personal purpose.”

For Van Eron, a looming issue facing Boomers is to go beyond traditional retirement. “Retirement has taken on negative connotations. We almost need to invent another word.”

Telecommuting – The Flexible Alternative

Flexible work – telecommuting – has become a growing trend for boomers and will continue into 2014.

In 2006, Sara Sutton Fell was seven months pregnant and laid off. She began looking for flexible home-based work. “I was really astonished by all the scams in the niche,” she said. She came up with the idea for FlexJobs, a place where qualified workers could find flexible professional online work. She hatched FlexJobs in 2007; a company she said has helped over 650,000 job seekers in their search for adaptable work hours.

FlexJobs attracts boomers who need to remain in the work force, and others who want to stay active and involved. “The nature of how, when, and where we work has changed so much in the last decade,” said the FlexJobs CEO. “Many professionals are opting for telecommuting.”

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These are sample work situations that boomers will create of find available in 2014. The trick is to discover the right fit.

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More Boomers looking to real estate as encore careers

aadmin — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 16:57:12 +0000

Retirement is not what Hollywood tells us, with a silver-haired man playing a relaxing game of golf on a sunny day, and later enjoying a relaxing dinner at an upscale restaurant with his wife. In fact, for a growing number of Baby Boomers across North America, retirement is just an opportunity for a new chapter of life to begin, and not the end.

For many Boomers in the United States and Canada, retiring from their day jobs opens up the opportunity, not necessarily to relax, but to find a new job; one that offers more meaning, enjoyment, or a better work-life balance than their previous roles provided.

An encore career is a job taken by a previously-retired person, and it can be anything from working part-time as a math tutor to a Wal-Mart greeter, and the goal is not necessarily primarily financial, but rather to achieve personal or ideological goals.

“Instead of accepting the notion of a career as an arc that rises in youth, peaks in midlife, and declines into retirement, they are charting a new territory - one that for many will reach its apex of meaning and impact when others in past generations headed for the sidelines,” wrote Marc Freedman, founder of Civic Ventures, a San Francisco-based organization which promotes encore jobs, in his 2008 book, ‘Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life.’

And while encore careers is a growing trend in North America, not all jobs are ideal for already-retired Boomers; some roles are physically demanding, stressful and can be frustrating.

To help Boomers find the best roles for their post-retirement jobs, here are three of the five encore self-employed careers:

Consulting: This job offers the flexibility that many full-time workers do not have, and depending on the area of specific expertise, the high hourly pay can offer few weekly hours in return for an enjoyable experience, social outlet, and intellectual stimulation.
Entrepreneur: Similar to consulting, this career allows a semi-retired Boomer to determine their workflow and the area they in which they would like to specialize- regardless of whether it is related to their past experience.
Sales: This job can be selling a product or a service for another company or agency, or working on commission-only for selling houses in a close neighborhood.

If a part-time or self-employed isn’t the right fit for your encore career, and you’re looking for a head start on finding the right job, visit RetirementHomes.com’s jobs checklist HERE and find yourself the right encore career.

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Who are the world's oldest business executives?

aadmin — Mon, 27 May 2013 12:46:51 +0000

The average age at which North Americans typically retire is around 60 years old. And while many Baby Boomers across Canada and the United States look forward to an early retirement, a growing number of middle-aged people are opting for a never-ending career in fields they love.

Many of these older workers aren’t just continuing in careers they enjoy; some of them are also prominent leaders in the business world.

This past week, legendary Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens published an article on online business social media networking website LinkedIn coinciding with his 85th birthday, where he wrote that, to him, “retirement is not an option,” and how continuing to travel widely and conduct business meetings around the world are a surefire way to stay healthy and vibrant.

To Pickens, another motivator for his continued career is amassing wealth, although he doesn’t plan on keeping it for himself: “My charitable gifts are now approaching my net worth. That’s an accomplishment I am proud of,” he wrote.

And although Pickens is one of the world’s most high-profile older CEOs, he is by no means the only one.

Another business magnate is 82 year-old Warren Buffett, CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and the world’s third-richest person, with a current estimated net worth of about $54 billion (US). Like Pickens, Buffett has made a public commitment to philanthropy, and said he plans on giving 99% of his vast wealth to charity.

“I’m having the time of my life,” Buffett said in a 2012 interview with CNN Money about his business career. But, he added, “In terms of managing money, or even managing a business...age isn't really a deterrent. It's a deterrent to everything else; hand-eye coordination, balance, and all kinds of things.”

As a result, while many older business leaders may not be intending to retire at all, for most people, at some point, the aging body begins to take its toll.

In a 2012 article in the academic journal Modern Biological Theories of Aging, Dr. Kunlin Jin of the University of North Texas wrote that while the modern scientific community is yet to establish a consensus with regards to the primary reason for physical aging among individuals, the aging of the human body remain a universal condition, and this can shorten the career lifespan of older executives.

Despite the challenges of running a business and aging, there remain a number of high-profile business executives over the age of 70, including Les Wexner, CEO of L Brands fashion retailer, Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, and J.W. Marriott, Chairman of hotel chain Marriott International.

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Canada enters new phase of aging

aadmin — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:01:21 +0000

A major demographic transformation is expected to take place in Canada this year, and aging experts say it is only the beginning of a change that will alter the direction of the country.

As reported by the Globe & Mail newspaper, data from Statistics Canada says that sometime in 2013, the number of Canadians aged 55 to 64 will outnumber those aged 15 to 24. When that happens, it would be the first time in Canadian history that people in their middle ages and early retirement years are more numerous that teens and early twenty-somethings.

One of the consequences of this demographic transition is a workforce where the younger generation of Canadians will have to stay in their jobs longer, or take on encore careers, to help share the cost of increased healthcare for Canada’s aging population.

“Relatively fewer young people means probably fewer children,” University of Alberta demographer Frank Trovato told the newspaper. “Fertility could decline even further, which could intensify the aging of the population.”

According to Prof. Trovato, most of the growth among Canada’s working-age population in the next 20 years will be as a result of immigration.

What do you think of Canada’s demographic changes? How would you propose to increase Canada’s working population?

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What does the pope's resignation mean for older workers?

aadmin — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:36:24 +0000

As RetirementHomes.com reported last week, when Pope Benedict XVI announced his retirement – the first pope to do so in 600 years – analysts began speculating about the possible causes of his resignation, from suspected diseases to scandals.

As reported by Bloomberg.com, when the 85 year-old pontiff abdicated his position, it raised the issue of how much business leaders in their 80s and 90s are able to continue leading companies and organizations, in spite of their advanced age.

Although life expectancies in the developed world have never been higher in history – with people living to nearly 80 years on average – experts say the human body does see changes with age.

“The prevalence of significant cognitive and functional problems does increase dramatically in the mid-80s,” Leo Cooney, chair of geriatrics at Yale School of Medicine, told Bloomberg.com. “It’s probably a good idea to reassess one’s ability to be in positions of power at that time.”

Still, not all analysts and experts on aging say the pope’s decision will be good for older people. Thomas Kirkwood, associate dean for aging at Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, told the news source that the pope stepping down will serve to confirm stereotypes of older people as feeble and unable to work.

What do you think? Does the pope’s resignation help or hurt seniors and older workers? Tell us about it in the comment section below:

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The five best jobs retirees can do from home

aadmin — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:15:18 +0000

Saving for retirement is a challenge for millions of Baby Boomers across North America, and when pension and savings aren’t sufficient to cover the expenses of retirement, sometimes a part-time job or encore career is the best choice for seniors.

Courtesy of MarketWatch.com, here are five jobs retirees and seniors can do from their own homes:

1. Direct Selling- This means selling products directly to the end users, or consumers, and it can be anything from hardware to household goods.

2. Selling on the Internet- A growing number of people are selling products online through websites like Amazon or ebay, either by selling their own unused items, or buying and selling at a profit.

3. Tutoring- With age comes wisdom, so one option is to become a tutor and offer expertise and training in subjects ranging from math to English to music.

4. Writing- Whether it’s freelance writing, or selling poems or short stories, look online to see whether there is anyone interested in purchasing your existing work, or hiring you for a new project.

5. Start a business- There can be a lot of work involved in starting a new business, but if you’re looking for a new project, this might be right for you.

Do you have any other ideas for great home-based work for seniors? Tell us about it in the comment section below:

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Where do seniors work the longest?

aadmin — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:42:11 +0000

Do you ever wonder how to stack up in the race to retirement? Are you working longer than your Baby Boomer peers, or retiring earlier?

As reported recently by MSN Money, the United States Census Bureau recently completed a study evaluating the labor force participation rate, per state, by residents aged 65 years or older.

In 1990, only 12.1 per cent of people aged 65 or older (or about one in eight) were still in the American labor force, but by 2010, that number had jumped to 16.1 per cent (or about one in six). But those numbers hide a wide range across different states.

For example, in Nebraska, nearly 30 per cent of older men still work, but in Puerto Rico, that number is less than 10 per cent. Among women, the highest numbers are recorded in Washington, DC, with 17 per cent of older women still working, compared to a low of 4 per cent in Puerto Rico.

So if your retirement plans include a future in a Florida active living community, it’s important to speak with your retirement advisor and evaluate how much money you will need to enjoy the comfortable retirement that you are looking for.

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Elderly cook retires after nearly 50 years in the business

aadmin — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:24:03 +0000

As RetirementHomes.com has reported, more seniors are turning to work after retirement, and beginning their encore careers to help provide more income, a chance to spend time on favorite hobbies, or just to stay active.

Mary Clemons is a perfect example of an encore career worker. As reported in the Newton Citizen newspaper of Newton, Georgia, 77 year-old Clemons, is looking forward to retiring soon from her current role as the cook of the Newton County Senior Cente.

In fact, this would be Clemons’ second retirement. Eight years ago, she retired from her role as a cook for Newton’s school system, but quickly realized she wasn’t yet ready.

“If you enjoy what you do, you can make it joyful. I really enjoy it,” Clemons told the newspaper. “My calling is serving people and when you do what you are called to do, it's nothing hard.”

It’s a good thing Clemons is an excellent cook: she has plenty of people to cook for, including her three children, her 13 grandchildren, and her 16 great-grandchildren, who Clemons says live close and are willing to clean out her pantry and refrigerator when there are leftover foods.

Newton County is located about 10 miles southwest of Atlanta.

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