Recent research tells an interesting story: Some retirees struggle to shift from an accumulation mindset to spending the assets they spent a lifetime building. The reasons vary, but they often share a common thread: uncertainty about whether those assets can accomplish everything the client may need from them in retirement. 

It’s fairly easy to understand why this happens. For those approaching retirement, making sure they have enough to support themselves for the rest of their lives is a massive undertaking. The assets they have accumulated may be expected to do everything in retirement, including: 

• Generating retirement income 

• Keeping pace with inflation 

• Covering healthcare expenses 

• Funding a potential long-term care need 

• Protecting a surviving spouse 

• Preserving a legacy 

• Providing emergency liquidity 

• Managing taxes 

• Withstanding market volatility 

It can be overwhelming, particularly when there isn’t a specific strategy for addressing all of the above. Rather than confidently using the assets they accumulated to enjoy retirement, this can cause clients to hold on to them, much like the things squirreled away in garages and attics because they “may need them someday.” 

That’s where insurance products can enter the conversation. When properly effectively deployed, insurance solutions can shoulder some of the load for specific items on the list above by providing: 

• Downside protection that can help mitigate market risk 

• Benefits that can help address a long-term care need 

• Financial protection for a surviving spouse 

• Dedicated legacy funding 

The bottom line? One of the most valuable things an advisor can do is stop asking a client’s retirement savings to solve every retirement problem. A well-thought-out insurance strategy can take the pressure off the investments and deliver peace of mind for clients. 

The goal is not to insure every possible risk. Rather, it is to decide deliberately which risks the client will retain, which they will transfer and which objectives deserve dedicated funding. It naturally shifts the retirement conversation from focusing solely on accumulating assets to what those assets will actually need to do for the client in retirement. 

A client who waits until retirement to decide that certain assets should support a spouse, provide a legacy or create another source of financial flexibility may discover that some useful planning options needed to be established years earlier. Permanent life insurance established during a client’s working years can provide protection today while building flexibility that may support selected objectives later in life. 

The best time to have that conversation is well before retirement, while clients may still have the time, income and insurability to assign different jobs to different parts of their financial strategy.