How We Helped Three Ford Motor Company Employees Build a Plan Around Their Benefits

Our Farther Focus team has served many employees of Ford Motor Company and their often unique retirement planning needs. With more than 170,000 employees as of 2024, according to data from Statista, Ford is one of the largest employers in the U.S. And because of the size of the company, there are many different situations that can unfold when it comes to financial planning, and, more specifically, retirement planning.

While we can't capture all of the different retirement scenarios in this piece, we want to highlight three case studies that we commonly build a plan around when working with Ford employees. We'll introduce you to Sarah, Kenneth and Donna, and James, to help you understand how we approach scenarios like voluntary retirement, taking advantage of Ford benefits, and leveraging executive benefits.

Voluntary Retirement from Ford in 2022

Sarah had over 30 years of service and qualified for retirement benefits and wanted to retire. 

She considered retiring in either 2022 or 2023. We provided consultations planning her cash flow, budget, and retirement timeline. 

We also looked at segment rates and how interest rates were trending to decide between the lump sum payout or monthly annuity.

Sarah used the expertise of our team to weigh her options for which year to retire in and how to structure her retirement income.

Based on our analysis retiring in 2023 would’ve resulting in a 25% reduction in her lumpsum payout based on the segment rates at the time. By working an additional year, Sarah would’ve effectively been working for free. Sarah was able to retire in 2022 and optimize her lump sum pension and is happily retired.  

Kenneth and Donna have worked with Ford for over 10 years. While they had some familiarity of their benefits there was a considerable gap between the information provided and the information needed to fully comprehend their benefits. 

During the planning process we provided visibility of existing benefits they were not taking advantage of such as the Supplemental After-Tax contributions then In- Service transfer into a Roth IRA for tax free growth and avoid the income limitation, investing HSA contributions that can grow over many years while lowering taxable income and other advanced planning.

We created a comprehensive plan along with alternative scenarios. They now have a better vantage point of retirement and shortening the path to get there.

James recently reached LL2 management level and wanted to better understand how the his new benefits could enhance his family’s retirement planning.

James used the expertise of our team to better understand the vesting and taxation of stock compensation including PSUs and RSUs along with impact of Ford’s share price.

We also provided options of how he could use his new benefits along with advanced planning looking at downside protection as part of a comprehensive financial plan to move up his retirement goal while creating more financial flexibility and peace of mind for him and his family. 

Next Steps

If you have a specific planning area or financial question related to your Ford employment, don't hesitate to reach out to our team by filling out the contact form on our page.