Why advisors should offer retirement-longevity planning

As U.S. life expectancy continues to increase, many advisors are offering retirement-longevity planning services to their clients.

These services extend traditional retirement projections past standard life expectancy to address various issues associated with 30- to 40-year retirement horizons. Million Dollar Round Table member Adam Rex shared some of the reasons why he started implementing these services, a few of the steps he took to implement them and the benefits he has gained.

Rex said that as a Certified Financial Planner and an empathetic person, it’s in his nature to be curious. He is vice president of risk management at Cornerstone Financial Services and a 16-year MDRT member.

“When you’re curious with clients,” he added, “it leads to conversations about their hopes, dreams, fears and convictions. Those are all predicated on an image they have for their future, and our job as advisors is to uncover that image and turn it into actionable, attainable goals. Clients have a vision for their future but generally have no idea how to translate their present into that vision. Longevity planning is one of the primary tools for helping them do that.”

For Rex, that includes planning for retirement income, including qualified longevity annuity contracts or other guaranteed income sources for his clients’ lifetimes. He and his clients also discuss long-term care expenses and the various ways to address them, including transferring the risk, absorbing the risk and ignoring the risk.

He works with clients in cognitive care as well, encouraging them to stay engaged in professional or personal activities to keep their minds and bodies engaged.

Rex added that when a client says, “My parents only lived until 65, so I am sure I won’t last much past that,” he reminds them that this is tantamount to driving down the road while only looking in the rearview mirror.

“With improvements in healthcare and greater awareness of how we take care of ourselves,” he added, “it’s highly likely that we’ll outlive previous generations. We must help our clients prepare for that possibility. I have a client who lost her husband when she was in her late 50s and, because of her family health history, she was convinced that she wouldn’t live past age 65. Today, she’s in her 70s and is going strong. Had we not planned for that potential outcome, she wouldn’t have saved or invested with the correct time horizon.”

Benefits of longevity planning

What are some of the benefits that longevity planning has given Rex? The most practical benefit is that it makes him a better planner, he said. “We’re not supposed to be order-takers,” he added. “With artificial intelligence doing financial consulting, the greatest value we can provide to clients is challenging their thinking and helping them build more robust plans that will withstand changes in the future.”

Rex added that longevity planning also makes client relationships stronger. “When you can help a client plan for a future and then walk into that future with them, they are clients for life. I’ve been working with a client for about 20 years, and she and her husband had dreams of biking throughout Europe together. He died, but she continues to take a trip every year. When we get together, she views it as something that I helped her accomplish and a way to honor his memory.”

Steps for incorporating longevity planning

The best step to implement longevity planning in your practice is to care, Rex said. “Care about your clients and what they have going on in their lives,” he added. “For me, that has also meant pursuing education that helps me better understand and address the different aspects of their financial lives.”

In addition, Rex said that his CFP certification has helped him tremendously in looking at a client’s entire financial situation, including longevity risks. In addition, he received his Certification for Long-Term Care to be better equipped to discuss long-term care solutions and his Accredited Investment Fiduciary designation to ensure that his investment recommendations were in line with his clients’ best interests. Advisors should be their clients’ biggest fans, he said, encouraging them toward a future that they’ll love. Rex likes to envision the client looking through an out-of-focus lens into the future.

“Our job,” Rex pointed out, “is to give them the tools to bring it into focus and then begin to live it. I would encourage advisors to be curious about their clients’ lives and stay curious. People change as time goes on, so adapt to those changes and be their advocates.”

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