The top five risks you face in retirement, and tips on how to handle them

They say risk is opportunity, but that's true only if one knows what the risks are and how they might be managed.

To that end, the Society of Actuaries has boiled down its list of 15-plus retirement risks to a manageable list of five, along with what it calls "actuarial approaches" to manage those risks.

1. Inflation

There's no doubt about it: Inflation is a big risk for would-be retirees and current retirees. From 1980 to 2007, the annual inflation in the U.S. for all goods and services ranged from 1.1% to 8.9%, but averaged 3.5%, according to SOA. That means an item that cost $1 in 1980 would cost $2.82 in 2007.

But for retirees, the rate of inflation can be even worse - especially for expenditures that represent a big and growing portion of their budget.

Take health care expenses, which tend to rise much more rapidly than general inflation. The cost of medical care has risen nearly four-fold in the 26 years since December 1982, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' little-known Consumer Price Index-Experimental (CPI-E) that tracks the rate of inflation for Americans 62 and older. The CPI-E was first introduced in 1982.

Health care that cost $100 in 1983 cost $387 in April 2008, according to the CPI-E. That might not be so