Gen X doesn’t just need a portfolio. It needs confidence.

Ask most people in our business what makes someone ready for retirement, and you’ll get a number — a savings target, a safe withdrawal rate, the right mix of investments.

I’d push back on that. After enough years watching how people actually feel as retirement approaches, I’ve come to believe the number was never really the point. What people are after is confidence — the quiet certainty that they’re going to be OK. And for the Generation X workers now stepping into their preretirement years, that confidence is in surprisingly short supply.

LIMRA’s new Retirement Income Readiness Report helps explain why. Most Americans nearing retirement do feel reasonably prepared — but that readiness isn’t simply a function of how much they’ve saved. Nearly 9 in 10 preretirees said they’ve thought about how they’ll generate income in retirement, yet more than three-quarters have no meaningful or recently updated plan. Awareness, it turns out, isn’t translating into action.

This is where financial professionals matter most, and the data makes the case plainly. Preretirees who work with an advisor are far more likely to feel highly prepared than those who go it alone — 77% versus 47% — and that advantage holds even after we account for wealth. Yet only about 4 in 10 currently work with an advisor. The opportunity is enormous, and it’s largely untapped.

The harder question is exactly what advisors should be talking about. Clients rarely walk in asking to optimize a portfolio; rather, they walk in uncertain, sometimes overwhelmed, wanting to know one thing: Will I be OK? We’ve found it helps to organize that conversation around three simple questions — what we call R3: Readiness, Resilience and Retirement income.

Readiness asks where a client stands today. Do you have a plan, and have you looked at it lately? It’s a judgment-free starting point, and for most people it bridges the gap right away, because the majority have no current plan and little recent planning activity. Helping someone simply put their goals on paper is among the most valuable — and most overlooked — things an advisor can do.

Resilience asks how well that plan would hold up. Inflation, market swings, an unexpected health event, a longer life than planned — these are the risks that keep even well-prepared people awake at night. In fact, anxiety about running out of money persists among consumers who consider themselves financially secure. Framing planning as adaptation rather than perfection gives clients permission to prepare for uncertainty instead of pretending it away.

Retirement income asks the question our whole industry is only beginning to answer well: Do you know how your savings will actually become income? Only about 1 in 4 preretirees believe their protected income sources will cover essential expenses, even as roughly 3 in 4 say they want to learn more about how to create that kind of income. Turning a balance into a dependable monthly paycheck — and explaining where guaranteed income fits — is quickly becoming the center of the advice relationship.

What ties those three together is a shift in what clients are really buying. It isn’t market outperformance or a forecast about the next quarter; it’s the reassurance from someone capable and someone they trust that they’ll be OK financially.  Ultimately, it’s this confidence in a financial professional that will always matter and help all of us sleep better at night.

David Levenson is president and CEO, LIMRA, LOMA and LL Global. He may be contacted at david.levenson@innfeedback.com.