Growing Retirement Worries and How Software Can Help

In a similar survey SimplyWise did in July 2020, 47% of respondents expressed concern about being able to pay medical bills in retirement (and 39% stated they were worried about their ability to pay living expenses during retirement).

How Advisors Can Help

Financial advisors have an opportunity to help alleviate these concerns that Americans have about retirement in today's extraordinary circumstances, and assist them with planning ahead to meet all expenses when they do retire.

The cutting-edge, intuitive financial planning solutions available can make it possible for advisors to demonstrate value by giving clients peace of mind that they adequately prepared to pay expenses during retirement, while also achieving their other life goals for that period of their lives.

Even in less volatile times, working with clients to craft, monitor, and amend as needed a living, breathing financial plan for achieving their long-term life (and family) goals is vital. During this "new normal," a detailed financial plan that can be updated in accordance with changes in circumstances and goals is even more important for helping clients navigate this period.

But digital financial planning tools can strengthen advisor/client conversations by helping clients make more accurate estimates of healthcare and other expenses during retirement.

In addition to allowing advisors to run unlimited scenarios with clients demonstrating the impact of changes in market conditions, employment, salary, and Social Security distributions on a client's overall financial picture, some of today's financial planning solutions can offer self-directed workflows to help advisors begin more complex retirement planning conversations with clients.

For example, some planning tools enable advisors to email clients a link to secure, self-directed workflows where they can enter details about their personal goals, expenses, and other information into a secure portal — and then utilize smart analytics from data providers to generate customized estimates of different expenses during retirement.

Other digital financial planning platforms are integrated with providers of healthcare data, offering more accurate projections of healthcare expenses — alongside leisure and daily expenses — during every phase of retirement.

These personalized projections are based on life expectancy and other factors according to the health, family, and financial information entered by clients in self-directed workflow experiences enabled by modern financial planning solutions.

At a time of heightened concerns over retirement outcomes, independent advisors can make valuable use of cutting-edge digital financial planning tools to help clients estimate how much they would need to cover all of their expenses in retirement — and map out how to get there, regardless of whether or not they have been laid off or furloughed as a result of COVID-19.

Angela Pecoraro is chief executive officer of Advicent Solutions, a provider of financial planning software and goals assessment and marketing communications tools for financial professionals and financial institutions.