Your Cleveland Clinic Benefits & Career: Financial Planning for Employees and Executives

Do you work at Cleveland Clinic? Get the resources you need and expert insights from financial professionals who specialize in helping Cleveland Clinic employees make the most of their compensation package and benefits.

Whether you’re a new Cleveland Clinic employee or you’ve moved up the ranks into a management or executive leadership role over a multi-year career, it’s important to make smart money moves with your income and employee benefits. For example:

✅ Do you know the right moves to make to get the greatest value from the Cleveland Clinic benefits available to you?

✅If you’re thinking about leaving Cleveland Clinic for another job or planning to retire from the company in a few years, are you taking the right steps today to ensure you will receive all of the compensation and benefits that you’ve earned?

Get the Most Value from Your Cleveland Clinic Benefits and Compensation Package

Throughout the year, Cleveland Clinic provides its employees and executives with updates about their benefits ranging from health insurance and health savings plans to retirement plans like a 401(k) and deferred compensation plans. While the company offers many useful resources and access to knowledgeable staff who can assist with questions, you’ll also find financial professionals not affiliated with Cleveland Clinic who specialize in helping Cleveland Clinic employees make the most of their income and benefits.

Whether you work in the Cleveland Clinic headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, another facility around the country, or remotely from home, you may have questions about your compensation package and benefits better suited for a financial professional who can offer unbiased advice and guidance.

For example, sensitive topics like discussing the steps you should take before quitting your job at Cleveland Clinic to work elsewhere, protecting yourself in advance of a staff reduction, or deciding when you should plan to retire are all conversations that may be more comfortable with a trusted financial advisor.

💡 In the Q&A below, you’ll gain insights from financial advisors who work with Cleveland Clinic employees to help them make smart decisions to get the most value from their compensation and benefits, reduce their money stress, and prepare for a comfortable retirement.

🙋‍♀️ Do you have questions not yet answered? Use the form below to submit questions anonymously and watch this article for updates with answers to your questions. You can also reach out to the financial advisors below to set up an introductory call or contact them with your questions by email.

💸 Smart Money Insights for Cleveland Clinic Employees & Executives

This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:

1. Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Cleveland Clinic Employees & Executives
2. Get Answers to Your Questions About Your Cleveland Clinic Benefits and Career
3. Browse Related Articles

Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Cleveland Clinic Employees & Executives

Answers to Cleveland Clinic Employee Questions with Ben Simerly, CFP®

Ben Simerly is a financial advisor based in Mentor, Ohio, who specializes in offering financial planning services to Cleveland Clinic employees. Ben helps his clients get the most value from their Cleveland Clinic benefits and compensation package so they can enjoy life and feel confident about their financial future.

Q: As a financial advisor with experience helping Cleveland Clinic employees save for their retirement, how do you help them make the most of their employee benefits?

Ben: The key to Cleveland Clinic retirement benefits is to know that the Cleveland Clinic is a collection of different companies that they have purchased and or built under the Cleveland Clinic umbrella. This means that within the Cleveland Clinic ecosystem, a wide variety of inherited retirement plan account types are available. There are 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, 457(b) plans, and 401(a) plans, and they all have different rules, benefits, investment options, etc. There are also different benefits packages available for various types of employees, locations, and hire dates. It’s extremely important to work with an advisor who is experienced in navigating the Cleveland Clinic system.  

The two most common retirement plans are the Cleveland Clinic SIP 403(b) Plan and the Cleveland Clinic IPP 401(a) plan. These two plans offer significant benefits if set up properly. The Cleveland Clinic SIP 403(b) Plan can be thought of as similar to a typical employer 401(k) plan in that both the employee and the Cleveland Clinic can contribute to it, and there is a match percentage. Cleveland Clinic IPP 401(a) Plan is only funded by Cleveland Clinic, similar to a pension plan, but allows for the employee to manage the investments and setup of the accounts. Similar to most Cleveland Clinic plans, both of these are custodied through Fidelity on their NetBenefits website. While they have a basic list of investment options, these two plans have a major hidden advantage in their ability to allow for customized investments in sub-accounts within the plan. This opens up retirement assets to a significantly increased number of beneficial investment options. 

Q: When you first speak with a Cleveland Clinic employee, what questions do you like to ask to better understand their unique circumstances and determine how you can best help them achieve their goals?

Ben: The two biggest questions I ask Cleveland Clinic employees are about their family goals and career goals. These two questions drive how we structure the setup of Cleveland Clinic employee benefits. Cleveland Clinic benefits can include everything from pet insurance to disability insurance to customized investment portfolios within their retirement plans. The catch is that some of these benefits have additional costs, and some require a sign-up in order to utilize the benefits, even if they are prepaid by the Cleveland Clinic. So it’s important to structure the benefits as a total package, taking into account the tax planning for the household and how the benefit selections will affect both the retirement plan and tax filing each spring.  

Q: Is there a particular benefit available to Cleveland Clinic employees you feel isn’t as well utilized or understood by employees as it should be?

Ben: The biggest unknown benefits to employees are the sub-accounts available within some of the Cleveland Clinic retirement plans. Many companies do not allow these sub-accounts, let alone allow freedom of investment choice. A number of Cleveland Clinic retirement plans allow for both. This is significant because it can result in a 6- or 7-figure difference in tax planning and retirement savings if managed properly by selecting more appropriate investments and or account types aligned with the client’s goals, rather than relying on the cookie-cutter list of investments or standard account types on the core plan. While the cookie-cutter list of Target Date funds from BlackRock and the short list of index funds have their place, they are designed to be easy one-size-fits-most options, not to be a fit for each employee’s goals. By customizing the investments, we often can help Cleveland Clinic employees reach their goals, including retirement, faster. Another key detail is that various plans offer Roth, Post-tax, and pre-tax account options. These need to be planned for in order to ensure they help each Cleveland Clinic employee’s tax plan, rather than harm it. 

Q: What are some of the unique financial planning challenges you commonly see among your clients who are Cleveland Clinic employees and how do you help them overcome these obstacles?

Ben: The biggest challenge for Cleveland Clinic employees is structuring the vast array of benefits options available to fit the employees’ family goals. Many of these benefits require finding benefits details that require years to accumulate. In one case, I had to drive to the company headquarters of the benefit provider company in another state. Over the course of multiple trips, I worked my way through the offices, offering free coffee to find the details of the insurance offerings. Ironically, that insurance offering changed the next year, and our search for information started again. The real challenge is in the fact that HR employees often aren’t provided with all the details they need, and as a result, employees just ignore the benefits.  

Q: For highly compensated Cleveland Clinic employees and executives, are there any special benefits you believe it’s important to take into consideration when preparing their financial plan?

Ben: The Cleveland Clinic retirement plans have a number of unique benefits for highly compensated employees, including a 457(b) plan, and unique Roth rollover options that allow for unique ways to increase the percentage of income going toward Roth and after-tax accounts. The key here is that it all has to be tied together with the investment and retirement and tax plans outside of the workplace accounts, so that all employee investment accounts work together in unison. When we look at the tax and retirement plan in the big picture, it allows us to structure the employee benefits to fit a client’s investment accounts held outside of the Cleveland Clinic plan, as well as those inside the Cleveland Clinic plan. The two sides of the table have to work together for the tax plan to work.  

Q: Do the Cleveland Clinic Plans offer Roth or after-tax options?

Ben: Multiple Cleveland Clinic plans offer Roth and after-tax sub-account options. The key is to understand how they will affect youre broader retirement plan including your outside investment accounts, as well as your near-term, and long-term retirement tax filings.  

Q: What types of retirement plans does the Cleveland Clinic offer?

Ben: The Cleveland Clinic offers a wide array of plan types depending on your specific work location, hire date, and other factors. This includes 401k’s, 401a’s, 403b’s, 457b’s, and the two primary plans, the Cleveland Clinic SIP 403(b) Plan and the Cleveland Clinic IPP 401(a) plan.  

Q: Does the Cleveland Clinic offer retirement plan options to help high-earning employees?

Ben: The Cleveland Clinic offers a 457b plan for some employees, in addition to plan rules within other plans that provide significant help to high-earners in their tax and investment planning. The key is to make sure the retirement plan decisions fit with the broader investment and retirement plans for the household, and the tax planning are coordinated with your financial advisor and tax accountant.  

Q: Do the Cleveland Clinic plans offer any investment options outside of the basics?

Ben: Multiple Cleveland Clinic plans offer specialty investment sub-account types that allow for custom investment management and matching the tax implications of the investment to your broader tax plan. Make sure you speak with an advisor about the available investment managers and types available in these accounts, and coordinate the planning with your financial team.

Q: Does the Cleveland Clinic offer a 401k? Pension Plan?

Ben: While the Cleveland Clinic does offer a 401 (k) plan, most employees will actually have the Cleveland Clinic SIP 403(b) Plan, which can be thought of as a non-profit side answer to a 401 (k) plan in many ways. The key is to make sure that all sub-accounts, contributions, beneficiaries, and other Cleveland Clinic plans available in the Fidelity NetBenefits portal are also set up. Many employees set up one sub-account, but forget to set the settings for the others, and they go unfunded or uninvested.  

Q: Will the Cleveland Clinic match my retirement plan contributions from my paycheck?

Ben: Most Cleveland Clinic plans allow for matching of employee contributions. The biggest exception is the Cleveland Clinic IPP 401(a) plan. This plan behaves as a pension plan in some ways and is only funded by the Cleveland Clinic. The key, however, is that the investment options are still up to the employee.    

Get to Know Ben Simerly, Financial Advisor for Cleveland Clinic Employees:

View Ben’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit his website to learn more.