At-Retirement Advice Process

parawhat

For an existing client, when do the advisers you work with generally start to formalise retirement planning for a client in the accumulation phase?

By that I mean, rather than simply sticking a vague retirement age of, say, 65 on the fact find, when do they start to pin down the client in terms of proper retirement planning? A year before? Two? Three? Five? 10 years? And by proper retirement planning I mean establishing/doing things like:

• Realistic retirement age (rather than default 60/65)
• Whether will phase retirement e.g. part time
• Understanding what retirement looks like for the client e.g. goals, needs, holidays, philanthropy etc
• Desired vs essential income requirements
• Requirements for capital lump sums (e.g. early access to TFC etc)
• Thoughts on drawdown vs annuity vs third way
• Thoughts on de-risking for capital, income as approach retirement
• Cashflow planning etc
• Etc

(I'm assuming they at least run basic pension shortfall analysis at annual reviews to tell an accumulating client whether they are on track with high level goals e.g. retire at 65 on 2/3rds of present income etc).

parawhat

*bump

arongunningham

We have no set timeline for this.

Almost all our client's will join us with a vision of retirement (or we'll coax one out of them).

Then, gradually, as the year's go by, this will become further and further defined.

Jona

@parawhat similar to @arongunningham
Retirement is always on the table as a discussion point and it is advisers skill to get them to formulate this into an action plan as the time draws nearer.

By 2 years out you would hope to be dealing with some fairly definite figures and requirements so some of the things you mention, such as de-risking etc are happening.

parawhat

Thanks @Jona and @arongunningham

I like this - so true:

@Jona said:

Retirement is always on the table as a discussion point and it is advisers skill to get them to formulate this into an action plan as the time draws nearer.

Is 2 years a little late in the day though? Does that give enough time to recover any losses if large withdrawals are required at retirement?

richallum

Wednesday's Howwow will cover this.

Also, this is interesting development.

benjaminfabi

That looks like the product that Partnership (now Just) used to have. Also Retirement Advantage (now Canada Life) still have.

I love the idea of these products but sadly they don't seem to ever get traction with advisers.

parawhat

@richallum said:
Wednesday's Howwow will cover this.

Looking forward to it.