Networks of advisers, including family members and friends, help individuals save more for retirement, according to a recent survey by PNC Financial Services Group.  

“As pensions recede and Social Security solvency is in doubt, Americans are feeling responsible for their own retirement and thus have created their own solution – a retirement advisory network,” the Perspectives on Retirement Survey reported.

Nick Becton, vice president and senior relationship manager at PNC Wealth Management in Wilmington, sees that phenomenon play out in his own family.

“I have a 25-year-old. He talks to me all the time about investing in his 401(k),” Becton said, adding that young people today are “not looking at Social Security to take care of them.”

The survey, conducted in July among a national sample of 1,025 adults, concluded that 95 percent of successful savers look for guidance in making financial decisions.

“What the survey found was that the two most important people in a person’s network are a financial adviser, combined with a spouse,” said Katherine Kraeblen, PNC’s retirement expert in its Raleigh regional office. “Unmarried people may be relying more on family members.”

Survey data showed that individual savers with trusted networks tend to save more than do those who go it on their own: an estimated $800,000 compared to $510,000 among all others.

Eyeing the uncertain pension and Social Security landscape of the future, Generation Xers believe they have to save more for retirement than do their baby boomer counterparts, Kraeblen said.  

Health care costs factor into the savings goals as well, she added.

“We can’t predict inflation, but health care costs are increasing at a much higher rate than inflation,” she said. “It’s never too late to start saving.”