Kindur Founder and CEO Rhian Horgan joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss how Americans can still save for retirement amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Video Transcript

ZACH GUZMAN: In the meantime, older Americans are trying to plan what to do with retirement plans as coronavirus cases continue to spread around the country. That's shuttering more than 1,200 field offices when it comes to Social Security out there, leaving some options to get answers limited. I want to bring in our next guest who's an expert when it comes to Social Security and retirement planning. Rhian Horgan is our guest. She has been on the show before. Kindur Founder and CEO who helps people plan for things just like this. And Rhian, when we look at this, it's hard to get answers here, but how are you planning, or telling clients rather to plan for this as they think about the pros and cons of maybe tapping Social Security a little bit earlier, and the penalties that might come along with that?

RHIAN HORGAN: So thanks Zach. You can imagine the first question actually that's on a lot of retirees minds right now is will they even receive their retirement paycheck? And the good news is that we've heard on multiple occasions from the Social Security Commissioner, as well as President Trump, that payments will continue. So that's the first thing just to kind of give some reassurance and peace of mind. What the main question for most Americans is, you know, are they going to stay employed? And should they tap into Social Security early as a way to get some income? As you think about weathering the storm and think about kind of where we'll be hopefully in a couple of months, the thing to keep in mind with Social Security, is that for most Americans, it's their largest retirement asset. It also grows at 8% per year between the age of 62 and 70. So if you have the opportunity to delay it, and you have some flexibility even in these uncertain times, we are recommending that our customers continue to do delay their Social Security election.

ZACH GUZMAN: Yeah, and I mean, that's the pro, con too, right. When we're looking at this, if you do have uncertainty, you're not exactly sure what's going to happen, so you're going to try, just like we're seeing businesses do, tap the credit market to make sure they have enough cash on hand to weather the storm. But for Americans trying to calculate that, it is about an 8% benefit each year that you're able to postpone tapping into these, I guess, benefits here, right?

RHIAN HORGAN: Yeah, and look and these-- so it's an 8% deferral benefit, you know, in a world where we are likely to live into our late 80's and early 90's. That benefit becomes really valuable later on in life. But I think, you know, what we've been trying to help our customers think a lot about, is are there any other short term ways to add some retirement income right now? And the interesting thing is that with crisis, there are actually some remote job opportunities that are coming up that are particularly interesting for retirees. So for example, I have two young kids. They've been taking classes on Outschool. Outschool last week sent out a request looking for 5,000 retired teachers to teach children remotely. And on Outschool, you can be earning up to $40 an hour, which is fantastic. For those of us that reside in New York City, you've no doubt heard the Mayor looking for retired doctors and nurses to help out. And so I think there also is an opportunity in this kind of moment of time that we're in, to also be thinking about perhaps instead of tapping Social Security, is there some source of new retirement income that's available to you?

ZACH GUZMAN: And then the last question too, we've been hearing a lot about potentially re-balancing in all of this as well just because if you are set to a certain percentage of bonds versus equities here, things might get a little out of whack depending on how quickly things have been falling. What is your advice for people who might be planning for retirement, getting close to that retirement age, on the cusp? A lot of Boomers out there trying to navigate this. Are you telling them to re-balance things here? What's the way to look at it?

RHIAN HORGAN: So Zach, we've been offering free calls to consumers. Go on Kindur.com. Any retiree can schedule a free 15 minute call with one of our financial advisors. We're also available for free texts to answer any questions that they have. And what we've been doing on those calls and texts is really helping them understand what the overall retirement income picture looks like. So we know what does their Social Security look like? Do they have any sort of pension? Do they have any sort of annuity? And understanding whether that foundation of retirement income is going to allow them to weather the storm. I think when you could answer that question, you really start to get a better understanding of whether or not you need to make any adjustments in your market portfolio.

ZACH GUZMAN: All right, there you go. The latest on the retirement front. Rhian Horgan, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you taking the time.

RHIAN HORGAN: Thank you.