FDX: Retirement Plus 30 Days
 

Thought I might share some information now that I am 30 days into retirement. Overall the experience has been rather painless. Lots of things to keep up with, but not really overwhelming. After all, I'm retired; what else do I have to do?
The initial call to Mercer and the email to the ACP's office (guess it is the PAC now) was done 60 days out. Got the ball rolling. Forms showed up, signed and returned. Benefit commencemnet date was 1 October, check showed up 19 October (this is normal for the first one). Next one shows 1 November.
Vacation paper check came in a FedEx envelope on 1 October. Probably not a good idea to leave this on the front porch for a few days, I retired on 20 September, got kicked out of PRISM on the 24th and check was cut on the 28th. Thought it would come on the 15th. Good thing we were home!! Bank put a "hold" on the funds for 7 days.
Social Security/Medicare: on line sign up. Just about as painless as it gets. Social Security starts 1 October, first check shows in November minus 3 months Medicare premiums.
Medicare Supplement: put it in place in July, started 1 September. Received 2 months reimbursement from the ALPA funds today for September and October. Union pays $112 per month and policy costs me $122.50/month (Plan F). I have been to the doctor once since I retired. Between Medicare/Medicare Supplement/TriCare I paid nothing for the office visit.
Ticare For Life: automatic enrollment when you sign up for Medicare Part B. Transferred mail order prescriptions with a 5 minute phone call. Copays dropped from $85/month to $9/month. I went to a military facility and got a new ID Card with Indefinite in Medical Section.
Still waiting on HCRA to transfer to Wage Works. Lady at FedEx Retiree Benefits told me there was a "computer glitch" but they should have it fixed this week. Same "glitch" kept ALPA life insurance active. Called them, got it straigtened out and received refund check 5 days later.
Wife's FedEx Retiree Health care kicked in with no problems. Filled out the form and she recieved her new card about 10 days later. They gave us the new group/ID number over the phone just in case we needed it.
Hope this helps the soon to retire.

Flyinhigh thanks for the candid info on your retirement. If your ok with it, could you share a couple other facts pertaining to your situation.
I see you are ex military, did you retire from the military? (Maybe this is obvious to the ex-mil crowd but not all). How old are (were) you are retirement? If you left before your 65th birthday, did you do so on a date that favors some/all your benefits/payouts??
Is there anything you would do different, re: timing or pre retirement planning or even how you handled your last 5 years.

Thanks for you info :)

Congats on a successful career. Thanks for the info and enjoy retrement. You earned it!

SG

Thanks for sharing your experience. I intended to email some of my recent retiree friends with similar questions asking for their recommendations. APC might be a better way to share such information.

A few questions please … I too wondered your age at retirement as I don’t believe I’ll be eligible for Social Security when I retire in a few years at age 60? How expensive is Tri-Care? My DAL Capt. crashpad landlord left a short Tri-Care brochure that made it look prohibitedly expensive.

I wonder if the union could start an online bulletin board, “Things I wish I’d known before I did my retirement paperwork?” It might include Social Security, Tri-Care and other benefits (besides the maybe obvious FedEx benefits).

Mark,

Good questions and a good idea about perhaps APC creating a forum that allows the sharing of ideas and techniques about retirement, as well as myths and legends dealing with life insurance, health insurance, etc, etc.

Here's a few links that should answer some of your questions:

Retirement Planner: Benefits By Year Of Birth

Health Plan Costs

http://www.tricare.mil/faqs/question.aspx?ID=508

Apply Online For Medicare Boldly Go Online To Apply For Medicare

JJ

Social Security: If you decide to take Social Security before your full retirement age (FRA), you basically give back roughly 8% per year, for the rest of your life. The chart shows that if you were born in 1960 or later, your FRA is 67. You can take SS as early as when you reach 62, but if you do, you would loose a large portion of your entitlement, for the rest of your life. Not a good deal, if you can afford to wait until your FRA. Conversely, if you wait past your FRA, you can add 8% per year to your monthly checks, forever.

Tricare: If you are eligible for Tricare, when you reach Medicare age, you automatically go on Tricare For Life, which is a free, as in no cost to you, benefit. With both Medicare and Tricare for Life, most experts (those at the SS administration, and the good folks at the FedEx Benefits Department) feel that you do not need to take out any supplemental health insurance. Of course, your situation may vary, and piece of mind is a very valuable thing.

I was 65 when I left. It worked out that I got another 2% by adding my vacation buy back to the pay periods that I worked for the fiscal year. I didn't have 25 years here so the 2% was a little bonus.
I have an active duty military retirement (23 years).
You can stay with the FedEx Retiree Health Care if you retire before age 65. Use the HCRA money to pay the premiums. Take a look at the high deductible option using TriCare as a supplement. Just be careful. You must be enrolled in an active or retiree FedEx Health Care program prior to turning 65 to get your PRP for the Medicare Supplement from ALPA.
I took Social Security at age 65. It cost me about $145/month in reduced benefits. Takes just about 14 years to mnake that up. I have no idea what SS will look like in 14 years. I want my cash NOW!

FWIW, my financial advisor told me: "We anticipate changes in the Social Security program, such as means testing, which will not be to your advantage. Our recommendation is to take it now."

Flyinhigh and Jetjok

Regarding Tricare for Life and Medicare Supplemental. I thought the way our system works is the ALPA VEBA pays for Supplemental only - not the Medicare Part B premium. So that if you have TFL, which is basically a Medicare supplement, you get no benefit from the VEBA - that the VEBA is really only valuable to those that don't have TFL since they can use the premium support for both themselves and their spouse for the supplement monthly premium??

You are correct. The ALPA VEBA will only reimburse for a MediCare Supplement. It will reimburse you up to $1300 per year for you and $1300 for your spouse to pay for a Medicare Supplement. A lot of my doctors and medical providers do not accept TriCare so I opted to purchase a MediCare Supplement (Plan F) rather than fight with TriCare over medical bills. I never had much luck getting them to reimburse copays when I was under Blue Cross so I just used the VEBA funds to cover my supplement. Also, and perhaps I am being a little paranoid, but if TriCare changes and starts charging for the service or changes the benefits, I am already established in a MediCare Supplement while my health is still good. There are only certain times when you can enroll in a MediCare Supplement.
You can get reimbursed for your MediCare Part B premiums from your HCRA. Be prepared for a litlle sticker shock when they tell you how much MediCare Part B is going to cost you. It is indexed based on your income. They look at your 1040 from two years ago. It could be a surcharge of either $46.10 or $115.30/month for each of you on top of the $93.80 base charge. There is a procedure to have it reduced when you go on retired pay. I am starting that next month.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the VEBA account, when initially set up, was to allow guys who were going to retire, before they were eligible for Medicare, to use the monies in that account to pay for health insurance and related services such as prescription drugs, medical supplies, doctor's visits, hospital visits/procedures, etc. The fund was not set up to specifically pay for Medicare or any of its supplements, reason being that guys at 60 were not eligible in the first place for Medicare.

While I have Tricare For Life, I don't have a Medicare Supplement, as every one of the doctors and hospitals around here accept the TFL program. Whether I ever use the monies in the individual VEBA fund or not, they are there to help cover the cost of medical and health related expenses, that might or might not be covered now or in the future. That is the real value of VEBA in my opinion. If the money is never used, it eventually goes back to FedEX.

JJ