Your Pension Is the Foundation — Not the Whole Plan

Whether you’re a CalSTRS Classic member, a 2% at 62 PEPRA member, or under CalPERS, your benefit is based on a formula: your age factor, your years of service, and your final compensation. The system is designed to replace a portion of your pre-retirement income — typically somewhere in the 50% to 65% range — depending on those three inputs.

The pension is reliable. It’s lifetime. It’s the part of your retirement you don’t have to worry about.

The question worth asking is what about the rest.

The Gap Most People Don’t See Coming

If your pension replaces 60% of your pre-retirement income, your lifestyle has to absorb a 40% drop — or you need another source to fill it. For some, that other source is a 403(b). For others, it’s Social Security (if you qualify). For most, it’s some combination, and it’s usually a little less than they were hoping.

Three things make this harder than people expect:

• Inflation. A retirement plan built around today’s numbers may not look the same in fifteen or twenty years. Your fixed pension doesn’t grow the way your bills do.
• Longevity. If you retire at 60 and live to 90, that’s a thirty-year retirement. Plans built for twenty years often run thin in the last ten.
• Health events. A chronic or critical illness in retirement can drain savings quickly — and your pension wasn’t designed to absorb that kind of shock.

What a Planning Conversation Looks Like

When we sit down with you — in person or by phone, your choice — we walk through the actual numbers:

• Your projected pension benefit based on your tier, current age, expected service years at retirement, and salary trajectory
• The retirement income you’ll actually need each month to live the way you want
• The gap between those two figures, in real dollars
• Your other resources — 403(b), Social Security if you qualify, spouse income, savings — and what role each one plays
• Strategies that may help close the gap, including supplemental retirement products, guaranteed lifetime income options, and living-benefits coverage for chronic or critical illness

We don’t push products. We start with your numbers, and we walk you through your options with full clarity on how each one works, what it costs, and what tradeoffs come with it.

Three Questions Worth Sitting With

• What percentage of your pre-retirement income do you actually need to maintain your lifestyle?
• If you live to 90, will your pension cover everything — or just part of it?
• If you or your spouse face a chronic illness in retirement, where will that money come from?

If you don’t have clear answers to these, that’s exactly what a planning conversation is for.