3 big secrets of happy retirees

Plus an assortment of smaller ones from our latest exclusive survey

Here's a happy statistic (and these days we'll take all we can get!): 68 percent of the retirees we recently surveyed said they're highly satisfied with the retired life. Another 27 percent told us they're fairly satisfied.

Those figures come from a survey of more than 24,000 subscribers to our website by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. Granted, the respondents might not be representative of the public at large; they're likely to be better educated, a little more affluent, and more conscientious in their financial habits. In other words, they're probably a lot like most readers of this newsletter.

Overall, we found three explanations for why some retirees seem happier than others: financial comfort, good health, and enduring friendships or interests. No faint-worthy surprises, there, I suppose. But some of the details are pretty intriguing.

Financial comfort

Net worth and retirement satisfaction are intertwined, but perhaps not as closely as you might think. As the box below illustrates, there isn't a huge difference between having a net worth of $500,000 and three times that much. Once you're accumulated $250,000 or so, including home equity, your odds of a highly satisfying retirement are better than 50-50 if the experiences of today's retirees are at all indicative.

A key difference between today's retirees and tomorrow's, of course, is their likelihood of having a traditional pension. Among our retired respondents, 55 percent reported receiving income from a pension; among the preretired, only 41 percent said they had a pension.

All else being equal, a job that comes with a traditional pension would be better than one that doesn't, at least as far as your retirement prospects are concerned. For many of us without pensions, it might be a bit late to consider switching industries or companies, even if we were so inclined. If you're in a position to switch, move fast: According to the benefits consultant Towers Watson, just 17 of the Fortune 100 corporations it surveyed last year still offered traditional pensions, though many now have so-called "hybrid" plans, such as cash-balance arrangements, which are a lot better than nothing or just a 401(k) alone. The public sector, once considered pension paradise, is cutting back too these days, especially with new hires, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Good health

Medical advice is a bit outside our normal area of expertise here at the Money Adviser. (We do have a sibling publication, Consumer Reports on Health, that I heartily recommend if you aren't already aware of it.) But one aspect of our survey data does offer a useful and mostly encouraging glimpse of what's in store for us on the health-insurance front. Retirees tend to be pretty happy with Medicare coverage. Sixty-seven percent of those who have original Medicare plus a Medigap plan said they were highly satisfied, as were 63 percent with Medicare Advantage and 54 percent with original Medicare alone. Health coverage from a spouse's plan or a previous employer fared well, too (60 and 66 percent, respectively). But privately purchased insurance plans were another matter; only 30 percent of our retired respondents were highly satisfied with those.

Presumably much of that last group had retired before age 65 and wasn't eligible for Medicare. Unless you're in line for ex-employer health coverage or have a working spouse and can get onto his or her plan, you might not want to retire before age 65 if you have any choice. The picture for private plans isn't pretty.

Friends and interests

Our survey also asked retirees about any regrets they had. Nineteen percent wished they'd developed enduring friendships, interests, or hobbies to carry over into their retirement years. Some 45 percent of retirees with one or more of those regrets still reported being highly satisfied in retirement, but of those with no such regrets, 73 percent were highly satisfied. In fact, Mark Kotkin, our director of survey research, tells me that friendships and interests, or the lack thereof, appear to be "the single best predictor of overall satisfaction with retirement." So if you don't already have enough friends and interests, now might be a good time to cultivate a few.

This article appeared in Consumer Reports Money Adviser.