IT is easy to conclude that those who make P70,000 to P100,000 a month are people that have the financial and investment savvy to back their earning capacity.

Not quite. According to a survey conducted by insurer Sun Life Financial, only four out of 10 of these above-average income earners invest a portion of their earnings and plan for their retirement.

Planning is important because one needs approximately P19.3 million to live comfortably in retirement, medical-health coverage included.

The survey assumes one starts to regularly set aside a portion of one’s income at age 25 and sustain it for the next 35 or 40 years.

According to the survey, the typical upper-income saver retires at the age of 58.9 years and that only 34 percent of them actually have health-insurance coverage.

The importance of health insurance is best illustrated by the amount of money needed to finance simple hospital bills that in the Philippines typically wipes out household savings.

The survey found that respondents who belong to the high-income bracket tend to have their retirement better-planned than the rest of the sample size.

Those who described themselves as conservative in their investment stance—and they comprise 60 percent of the sample size—also tended to have better planning about retirement.

Likewise, only 60 percent of their number regularly save something for the proverbial rainy day, the survey found.

In terms of confidence about how well they should fare during retirement, only 9 percent expressed a high degree of optimism, 47 percent expressed a moderate degree of optimism while 38 percent described their retirement prospects as moderate.

The survey found that 27 percent expect to continue working after retirement because they need to continue earning their keep, while 26 percent said they will work in order to keep busy.

Another 26 percent said they would stop working altogether. What surprised Sun Life executives was the finding that 60 percent of respondents “do not have a clear idea when to retire,” although they also found 59 years as the mean retirement age.

Those who expected to keep working full-time even during their retirement age accounted for 21 percent of the sample size.

These represent the number of people who have not established an amount somewhere that they could draw from in the twilight of their lives, the survey said.

THE Philippine National Bank (PNB) is getting P700 million from the sale of its 40-percent stake in Beneficial Life Insurance.

THE peso on Wednesday continued to fall, losing 19.5 centavos as a fresh wave of global credit concerns caused investors to shy away from the local currency, traders said.

IT is easy to conclude that those who make P70,000 to P100,000 a month are people that have the financial and investment savvy to back their earning capacity.

PASAY City, one of two cities where parts of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) are located, now has an ordinance imposing a P50 fee on all passengers who fly out through the premier airport.