Your 2026 Financial Planning Checklist: 10 Things to Review

The new year is a natural time to take inventory — not just of your hopes and intentions, but of your financial picture. With the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expiration now in full effect and various regulatory changes taking shape, this is a good moment to step back and review the foundations of your retirement plan. Here are ten specific items to work through, either on your own or with your advisor.

1. Verify Your Beneficiary Designations This sounds simple, and yet it is frequently overlooked. Open your statements for your IRA, 401(k), and any other retirement accounts. Look at who is listed as your beneficiary. Is it still correct? Has someone passed away? Have you gotten divorced and failed to update the designation? Did you intend to name a specific percentage split between multiple beneficiaries, but the form only shows one person? Beneficiary designations override your will — they pass directly to the named person outside of probate. Getting this wrong can mean assets go to the wrong person, or become taxable to an estate that never should have received them. Check this list today. Make corrections if needed.

2. Review Your Tax Withholding and Estimated Payments With the new tax brackets now in effect, the amount of tax you owe on your income may have changed. If you are receiving Social Security, pension income, or retirement account distributions, the amount of tax being withheld might no longer be correct. Review your tax withholding using Form W-4 if you have an employer, or review whether you are making adequate estimated quarterly tax payments if you have self-employment or investment income. Getting ahead of this prevents surprises on April 15.

3. Calculate Your Expected Required Minimum Distributions If you are 73 or older, you are required to take distributions from your traditional IRAs and most employer-sponsored retirement plans. The amount is calculated using your age and your account balance as of December 31 of the previous year. If you turn 73 in 2026, your first RMD is due by December 31, 2026 (with an exception for those who turned 73 in 2023, whose first distribution deadline was April 1, 2024). Work with your advisor to calculate the amount you are required to take and when you need to take it. Missing this deadline triggers a substantial penalty — 10% of the amount you failed to withdraw, or up to 25% depending on the circumstance. It is one of the easiest penalties to avoid, and one of the easiest to incur through simple oversight.

4. Review Your Insurance Coverage Health insurance is just one piece of this puzzle. Review your auto insurance, homeowners insurance, umbrella liability coverage, and any other liability policies. Particularly in Florida, homeowners insurance has become more expensive and more complex over the past few years. Review the details of your policy: Does your coverage match the current replacement cost of your home? Are you paying for coverage you do not need, or missing coverage that you do? Are there opportunities to bundle policies or shop for better rates? In the Tampa Bay area, hurricane season and rising construction costs have made this a particularly important item.

5. Verify Your Estate Plan Documents Do you have a will, a living trust, a power of attorney, and a healthcare directive? If so, when was each document last updated? Estate planning documents can become outdated as laws change, as your circumstances change, or simply as your preferences evolve. If you are married, do both spouses have documents in place? If you have minor children, do you have designated guardians named? This is not a quick task, but it is one that pays dividends. Review your documents. Update anything that no longer reflects your wishes. Work with an estate planning attorney if needed — the investment is worth it.

6. Check Your Credit Report Federal law entitles you to a free credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus once per year. Visit AnnualCreditReport.com and pull your reports. Review them for inaccuracies, fraudulent accounts, or signs of identity theft. Particularly for retirees in the Tampa Bay area, identity theft is increasingly common. Spotting it early can prevent substantial problems. If you find inaccuracies, dispute them with the credit bureau. It is a straightforward process and it can prevent your creditworthiness from being damaged by errors you did not create.

7. Review Your Investment Allocations and Rebalance Over the course of a year, investment returns cause your portfolio to drift from its target allocation. If stocks have done well, your portfolio might be weighted more toward equities than you intended. If bonds have done poorly (as they have in several recent years), your fixed income allocation might have shrunk. Rebalancing — selling what has done well and buying what has not — is a mechanical way to enforce the discipline of buying low and selling high. It also ensures your portfolio still matches your risk tolerance and time horizon. Review your allocation. Rebalance if needed. This is a good task to do early in the year.

8. Review Your Withdrawal Strategy If you are already retired, are you withdrawing money in the most tax-efficient order? Are you pulling from taxable accounts first (which allows your retirement accounts to continue growing tax-deferred), or are you unnecessarily generating large taxable events? Have your spending needs or life circumstances changed in a way that should affect how much you are withdrawing? Have your sources of income changed? These are not one-time decisions — they deserve an annual review.

9. Assess Your Healthcare and Long-Term Care Planning Healthcare costs are increasing faster than general inflation, and you have now seen another year of premium increases. Are your current insurance choices still appropriate? Is your Medigap coverage or Medicare Advantage plan still the best option for your situation? Have your health circumstances changed in a way that should affect your healthcare planning? Have you thought about long-term care risk — not just insurance, but other strategies like family planning or asset protection? This is worth revisiting annually.

10. Schedule a Comprehensive Review With Your Advisor Perhaps most importantly, schedule time to sit down with your fiduciary advisor and review your overall plan. Bring your updated documents, your current statements, and any questions that have come up over the past year. Review how your actual results compare to your plan. Discuss whether any adjustments are needed given changes in tax law, market performance, your personal circumstances, or your goals. An annual review is a standard part of good financial planning. If you are not doing it, you should be.

A Few Final Thoughts These ten items are not a comprehensive list of everything that matters in retirement planning. They are the things we see most often in our practice that benefit from annual attention. Some of them require professional expertise — a tax advisor, an estate planner, a financial advisor. Others you can handle on your own. The key is to be intentional about it, rather than letting it happen to you. Retirement is long — potentially 30 or 40 years. Annual maintenance is how you ensure your plan continues to work for that entire span.