Next Wave Options
Independent life insurance and retirement income agency serving Salinas and Monterey County.
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Independent life insurance and retirement income agency serving Salinas and Monterey County.
Get a quote
In 2024 Seaside grew 5.7 percent, which made it the fastest-growing California city over 30,000 residents. Local reporting attributed a good share of that to a 3.3 percent rise in the student population at CSU Monterey Bay. A city that adds people that quickly is a city where a lot of households are new, recently housed, and working out their financial footing at the same time.
That is the practical reason this page exists. The insurance and retirement questions we hear in Seaside are not the ones we hear in the Salinas Valley. They come from people whose employer is a university, a school district, a hospital or the federal government, not a grower.
Seaside grew up alongside Fort Ord, which opened in 1917 and closed in 1994. The base is why the city exists in its present form, and its closure is why the land now holds CSU Monterey Bay, the UC MBEST Center and Monterey College of Law. In the mid-1960s roughly 6,000 of the city's 22,000 residents were African-American, the largest such community between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and that history is still visible in the city today.
What that means for us is a concentration of two groups we work with constantly: people with a military connection, and people whose retirement savings sit in a public-sector plan. By employment, the largest industries in Seaside are accommodation and food services, health care and social assistance, and retail trade, so a third group is here too: households where the income is real but the employer offers little or nothing in the way of a retirement plan.
Military service produces a retirement picture that most agents handle badly. There may be a pension under the legacy system or the Blended Retirement System, a Thrift Savings Plan balance, Survivor Benefit Plan elections, VA benefits, and often a second career afterwards with a completely separate plan attached. Those pieces interact.
Two points we make early with anyone in that position. A TSP balance can generally be rolled to an IRA, but the TSP's costs are famously low, so "can" and "should" are different questions, and we will say so plainly. And Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance ends after separation; the conversion window is short, and Veterans' Group Life Insurance is not always the cheapest answer for someone in good health. Our rollover versus transfer page covers the mechanics of moving any of it without creating a tax bill.
CSU Monterey Bay staff are generally CalPERS members, and faculty and staff across the CSU also have access to supplemental savings plans. Seaside's public schools are run by Monterey Peninsula Unified, which serves Monterey, Del Rey Oaks, Sand City, Seaside and almost all of Marina, so a teacher here is usually a CalSTRS member with a 403(b) available on top.
Both of those are pensions, and a pension changes the answer to almost every question that follows: how much life insurance is actually needed, whether an income product has any job to do, and which survivor election matters most. Our public employees section goes through CalPERS and CalSTRS in detail, and we are not affiliated with either system.
We do not keep an office in Seaside, or anywhere else: we work by video and phone and come to you by appointment. Most first conversations happen by video or phone because that is faster for everyone. If you would rather meet in person we will come to you by appointment, and if you are 65 or older, California Insurance Code section 789.10 requires us to give you 24 hours' written notice before an in-home appointment. We hold to that whether or not you ask.
No. We do not keep a physical office anywhere; we meet Seaside clients by video, by phone, or in person by appointment. We would rather be honest about that than list an address we do not sit in.
Often not. The Thrift Savings Plan's costs are very low, and an IRA has to earn its keep against that. There are real reasons to move it, including consolidation and wider investment choice, but low cost is not usually one of them. We will show you both sides before you decide.
Coverage ends after separation, and there is a limited window to convert to Veterans' Group Life Insurance without proving your health. VGLI is valuable if your health has changed. If you are healthy, a commercially priced term policy is often cheaper, and it is worth comparing both before the window closes.
CSU staff are generally CalPERS members, with supplemental savings available on top. The pension is the foundation, and it changes how much of anything else you need. Bring a recent statement and we will read it with you.
Not directly. Life insurance is priced on age, health and the amount of coverage, not on where in the county you live. What local growth does change is how much coverage a household needs, because a newer and larger mortgage is the single biggest driver we see.
Yes. We work in English and Spanish, including reading policy documents and plan statements out loud in whichever language you prefer.
Ready to talk it through? No cost, no obligation, in English or Spanish.
Schedule a CallReviewed by Roberto Morales, California Insurance License #0G97165. Next Wave Options is licensed for life and annuity products only and does not provide investment, tax or legal advice.
