At retirement, you may choose to convert all or a portion of your account to monthly income through the Lifetime Income Strategy (50% must be converted to maintain insurance eligibility). Any portion of your account that you convert to monthly income will then be considered “secured” and invested in a Secure Income Portfolio. The assets secured in the Secure Income Portfolio remain in the market and have the ability to increase your monthly income in retirement with market gains but will not decrease your income with market losses.
Any assets you do not convert to income will be considered “non-secured” and will remain in a target-date portfolio that is customized based on your age.
After retirement, you have full control over your non-secured assets. You may leave them in the SURS LIS target-date portfolio, take additional withdrawals or move them to any of SURS core funds.
You also may access secured assets. However, if you have chosen to maintain insurance eligibility, you can only access any secured assets over and above the 50% level. Keep in mind, choosing to move or take additional withdrawals from secured assets will reduce your guaranteed monthly retirement income.