‘Probability of Success’ Doesn’t Mean What Your Clients Think It Means

When advisors talk about the “success” of a retirement income plan, clients naturally think it means something like “living a great life.” After all, surveys tell us that retirees’ top goal is having a high quality of life.

In other words, retirees tend to focus on using their resources to fund as comfortable and fulfilling a life as possible, including experiences with spouses, friends, children and grandchildren. While this goal includes not running out of money or being a burden on children, leaving money behind after death consistently ranks as a very low priority among retirees.

When I ask advisors what their goal is when working with retirement clients, they consistently express similar aspirations: helping clients live the best life they can. “Success” here doesn’t mean working magic so everyone lives in a fantasy land where anything is possible, but rather helping people live the best life they can in the financial world they happen to be living through.

See full article on ThinkAdvisor here: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/03/29/probability-of-success-doesnt-mean-what-your-clients-think-it-means/

Justin Fitzpatrick, PhD, CFA, CFP

Justin Fitzpatrick is President and Co-Founder of Income Lab, retirement income planning software used by thousands of financial advisors. He developed the guardrails-based approach to retirement income distribution after a decade in financial services at Jackson and seven years in academia at MIT, Harvard, and UCLA. His research on adjustment-based planning has been published on Kitces.com, ThinkAdvisor, AdvisorPerspectives, and FinancialPlanning Magazine.

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