Indeed. For some couples, it can make sense to do Roth conversions…. but it is wise to first study tax (and IRMAA) implications.
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And some also have to factor in the 10 year inherited IRA rule.
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I think in a broader sense the mold/water/etc issue is related to retirement in that it can be representative of a large unexpected expense. Or at least a reminder to be sure one understands one’s insurance coverage periodically.
There was significant tornado damage in the county to our north over Memorial Day Weekend. My FB was filled with photos of friends’ (we used to live in that county) damaged homes and felled trees. If fallen trees haven’t damaged your home, their removal is not covered by insurance. I had dinner with a friend from the area last night, and their tree removal was $27k. Another friend had posted that while, “We will be okay,” that they certainly were not overinsured.
It can be a lot harder to weather (pardon the pun relative to tornado damage) large, unexpected expenses when one is retired. But, I understand reining in the thread when it got into the weeds.
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I think a homeowner needs a larger emergency fund than other people. Usually, you think of an emergency fund as being able to pay for a new car if your car dies, or paying day to day expenses if you lose your job. However, an unexpected home repair could be the most expensive emergency you face.
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Does this apply to spouses? I didn’t think it did.
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Some beneficiaries of IRA accounts whose owners died in 2020 or later are exempted from the 10-year rule. This exemption applies to “eligible designated beneficiaries,” who can be:
- A surviving spouse
- A disabled or chronically ill person
- A child of the deceased who hasn’t reached the age of majority
- A person not more than 10 years younger than the IRA account owner
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Don’t get me started on homeowners insurance. We had water damage from improper maintenance of a heat condenser unit. Chubb covered most of it but then dropped us. It is now impossible for us to shop around for other insurance—we can only get insurance from one company (Lloyds of London). No other companies will insure the property until it’s 5 years without a claim. I’ve called agents representing several different homeowners insurance companies and they all say the same thing. We’re suing the HVAC company with whom we had a service and maintenance contract. It’s been a huge headache and incredibly stressful. We have 2 more years until we can (hopefully) get more reasonably priced coverage.
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So sorry to hear about that, even more so as I have retained Chubb as my carrier for more than 20 years, having heard that they pay out without issue. It seems unreasonable for them to cancel your coverage since the damage was someone else’s fault. Hope you are successful in your suit with the HVAC company.
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I totally understand the boat you are in, and so sorry you have this predicament.
We had homeowner’s with State Farm for over 30 years; they offered better bundled insurance with car and we did that as well as an umbrella policy. We had two small auto claims, and also there was a false auto claim (that did get straightened out - it was on a rental car that had damage hundreds of miles after I had rented) – then State Farm dumped us on these 3 policies and kept me insured under our jewelry policy. Because we had a water claim within 5 years, when I checked with Geico (who was our former auto policy) they would not even quote a rate. Our State Farm agent was furious, because of the implications their policies were having on his clients and his business. One hears about ‘3 claims within a specific period of time’ being an issue, but it seems they cross over with the various policies as well to decide to drop someone when they believe their risk is ‘too high’. The two auto claims were about $7K and $8K (I just was throwing out old paperwork).
Thankfully I found a way to obtain USAA insurance – dad was still alive and was a Veteran, so we took out a small jewelry policy for him with USAA and that allowed our daughters and us to all have USAA insurance member numbers.
All these ‘extra things’ which drive up the buffer one needs to have financially in retirement. Also the various things that wear one down, but one can just deal with the present and move forward.
I like owning our own home. But as the insurance discussions illustrate, there can be a lot of headaches. One financial advisor told us you should stay in your house (assuming it is easily affordable) until you drive up the garage and think, “I don’t want to be dealing with home ownership anymore”.
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Any opinions about whether or not to sign up for online IRS access?
I was also curious about Planvision, and went to its website. I clicked on lots of the information posts on the website (there is a lot!) to get a feel for their approach. I’ve read a lot of people on Bogleheads have been happy with their experience with Planvision fwiw. I’m still taking in information before deciding. It’s really inexpensive compared to others for sure.
As an alternative, there is an advisor-only list available for purchase ($200 for 12 months of access) on adviceonlyfinancial.com that was compiled by Harry Sit. What I find frustrating are all the advisors who call themselves fiduciaries and fee-only, but turns out their fee is 1% AUM. This list supposedly doesn’t include AUM advisors. We had a 1%AUM advisor in the past and that was a waste of money. Growth-wise I did just as well with our portfolio (and I know nothing) as he did with the portion of our portfolio we let him manage over a 5 year period. I’m pretty certain now that just sticking it all into a total stock market mutual fund would have done the same or better.
We just did a complimentary meeting with an advisor, who we found out at the meeting was another 1% AUM person; not only that, but we would lose all personal control over our assets. Hard pass. We are not at that point in our lives.
I’m in the process of setting up a financial plan meeting (complimentary) with a CFP at Schwab where we have the bulk of our funds. I’ll be interested in seeing how that goes. We’re not in retirement yet, and I want us to be as well-positioned as possible as we can be and have a plan for entering retirement.
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Were you able to get homeowner’s insurance from USAA even though you had a water claim within 5 years? I guess I should check into it. My husband was in the military.
I put it off for years, but I’m glad I finally enrolled. Easier to make quarterly payments, and it keeps a record online so when I do taxes next year, I don’t have to dig thru bank statements).
It’s one of those things that most people will rarely use (unless you own a small business), but when you need it, it works great.
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Check out Armed Forces Insurance (AFI). They are like USAA used to be. Reasonable. I dumped USAA after 25 years, as they started acting like any other insurance company, whatever it takes to make a buck. Since we are now (attempting) to live on our pension and not take too much out of our retirement accounts, dollars matter more than they used to.
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Yes we were able to pick up all 3 insurances, homeowner, auto, and umbrella - I don’t recall them asking about claim history, but it may have been with our application they did some kind of a check. I know we did not have a ‘flat out rejection’/screening question about water damage in last 5 years – but this was also 2016 and lots has changed with insurances since that time too. As soon as we had our USAA numbers, we worked with their agent by phone and got everything going for continuous coverage with these three insurance policies.
Interesting reading about Armed Forces Insurance from @busdriver11
I know many people’s homeowner’s insurance has risen in most recent years. There has been some buzz on it with social media in our area. However, I know from personal experience and people I know, we just proceed with caution on filing an insurance claim – especially handling out of pocket if we know it is small.
Years ago, my sister had 3 homeowner’s claims (I don’t believe any of them were water) - and I remember one was a bit of a ridiculous thing. Her homeowner’s canceled and they found homeowner’s through an independent insurance agent. It was a very concerning situation for them looking for coverage. So it does help to talk about these things.
For those wondering, after our dining room wall and some ceiling area was cut out yesterday, a leak detection company came to make sure there was not a 2ndary source of water, and there was. We believe the plumber in April damaged the master sink drain junction (he fed a thicker, long snake down to relieve a clog). I imagine we would have discovered this at a later time had we not had the water situation from the failed roof due to severe hail.
Our USAA claims fellow is out today, but on Monday he can direct the master bath work and will know how to separate for two insurance claims. When all is done, I believe USAA can then recoup one claim from plumber’s insurance. This new situation probably will now also help us with out-of-pocket costs even with the second deductible (the one with the roof is $2,000 and the one with the other is $1,000) because I believe we now will not exceed the mold limitation under two claims. Now that we see the ‘room’ plastic area in the dining room, we will know what to expect with the master bath.
I won’t post about all this again on this thread unless asked, to respect the wishes to remain more ‘on topic’ with this thread. One thing we are being more active on in retirement is decluttering and getting rid of stuff - trying to do stuff every day. To add to exercising and eating moderately. Establishing routines to add these components in. Training our brains.
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We had Chubb for our last house, not sure if there was any bundling. After a slow start, they performed very well after a tree fell through our roof from Hurricane Sandy and earlier when a contractor created a spill in the basement and when a furnace failed (I think) and I think they covered both of our condos under the same policy.
In our new house, our agent said that Hanover was trying to compete with Chubb (same good performance on claims but priced somewhat lower) and we have bundled all of the policies. Our only claim was when leaves somehow got into some part of my car (I think where the hatchback connects to the car) leading to a leak and they covered everything. It is a BMW which means elevated repair costs. All handled very easily.
I just started an insurance thread…
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Equally surprisingly, my application was approved in 4 days!
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