NEW YORK -- Baby Boomers looking forward to retiring in the near future have to take greater responsibility to prepare for that next phase in their lives, advised former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently, and not simply rely on federal programs to sustain them.

Keynoting the MDRT Boomeretirement Industry Summit, the former Federal Reserve chairman told attendees, "We have to recognize that what we’re going through is unique in world history. Retirement is a relatively new phenomenon. As a society we’ve dealt with it successfully in the past few decades, but we’ve never had such a huge group of individuals going into the system at once and then living so long in their retirement years.”

Greenspan reportedly emphasized that the government will find it increasingly harder to keep all the financial promises it’s made through Social Security, Medicare and other programs for seniors in the coming years.

The longer we collectively wait to deal with these key issues, he said, the more difficult they will become to address.

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As life expectancy continues to increase, Greenspan said Baby Boomers will look for additional ways to remove the financial uncertainties that will come from a longer retirement by analyzing their lifestyle, determining the resources at their disposal and finally making decisions to best prepare for their future.

According to sources, MDRT — a leading non-profit association representing 35,000 financial services professional around the world — convened the Boomeretirement Summit to help lead the development of solutions to the Baby Boomer retirement crisis.

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