And that education is needed. The strategies involving Social Security are complex, with each person or household having unique circumstances based on numerous factors that go well beyond the best age to collect. Other considerations include how long a person has worked, whether they were self-employed, if they have pensions or maybe they started collecting Social Security but want to go back to work for a few more years. “No two people are ever the same, and I’ve never had two cases that were the same,” Shedden says. “Hundreds of thousands of claiming strategies are available, so you have to do an analysis. And a lot of money is at stake, too. I don’t know if you realize how much it adds up to over the retirement years, but it’s hundreds of thousands and sometimes for couples even millions of dollars.” Her organization developed proprietary software that walks people through a series of questions to help them determine the best maximization strategy. It will compare outcomes if someone wants to examine scenarios. She says the software asks other questions that can help the RSSA understand their client’s comprehensive retirement financial situation: Do you own a home? How much is it worth? Do you have individual retirement accounts or other retirement accounts? Do you have other investments? Do you have a traditional mortgage or a reverse mortgage? “RSSAs use this information to help their clients make their most optimal claiming decisions,” Shedden adds. “And we encourage our RSSAs to have a team of professionals that they work with who could further help their clients.” Reverse Mortgage magazine recently chatted with Shedden to get more insights into NARSSA as part of NRMLA’s coverage during Older Americans Month in May. The conversation is lightly edited for clarity and style. Reverse Mortgage: Tell us about the RSSA designation and how that was developed. Martha Shedden: Our course is rigorous. It’s approved for continuing education (CE) credits for certified financial planners, CPAs, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other designations. In 48 states, it’s approved for insurance continuing education, and that process has taken over two years to achieve. We want it to be very high quality. It’s not an easy course. There are a lot of confusing things about Social Security, and we want the designation to be the gold standard of Social Security advice. RM: At NRMLA, the leaders often talk about getting loan officers to offer guidance about how a reverse mortgage might fit into an overall retirement plan, rather than just sell a reverse mortgage. Thoughts? MS: Social Security is a way to introduce yourself to the demographic who is aging into retirement. You can work with someone when they’re in their mid-50s and help them plan by using the projected earnings to the date that they want to quit working. And it’s such a nonthreatening, educational topic. If you have an event and it’s on Social Security education, people come to that because they have questions. And so, for a reverse mortgage agent, this is a way for them to get the word out that they want to help people with the Social Security claiming decision. They may do that as a value-add: “If you come to my webinar, we can do your Social Security analysis.” It’s such a helping, trusting value that individuals will remember that you also do reverse mortgages. And that reverse mortgages are another tool in that comprehensive retirement planning puzzle—strategizing which assets to use in which order. I mention reverse mortgages to everyone I work with who owns a home because they should know about them. RM: You have proprietary software that RSSAs use to help advise their clients. Talk a little bit about that. MS: It’s wonderful to have our own software. There are several Social Security software companies. There are Facebook groups, podcasts and all kinds of things like that. We’re unique because we educate. You can’t help someone with their Social Security decision unless you understand the rules that apply to them. Our software is such a wonderful program because, as educators, we make up case examples. We get feedback from our RSSAs all the time on what they want to see in the software—things that we can improve—so it’s the whole package. Once a person is a RSSA, we continue to work with them, and we provide continuing education. We require them to take four of our CE credits each year to maintain their membership. Removing the Mysteries continued from page 27 28 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MAY-JUNE 2024
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