One of the most important decisions you'll make planning for your retirement is when to claim Social Security.

Most people can claim retirement benefits starting at age 62. There are a lot of good reasons to claim as soon as possible, but there are just as many, if not more, reasons to hold off. The primary benefit of waiting to claim Social Security is an increase in your monthly benefit. If you wait until age 70, you'll receive a monthly check about 77% bigger than if you claim at age 62.

To make matters even more complicated, your Social Security claiming decision is inherently based on your expectations for the future. Unfortunately, most people don't have a perfectly clear crystal ball, and the future rarely plays out as expected. And when circumstances change, we may want a do-over on one of the biggest decisions in all of retirement planning.

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Source Fool.com