Earlier this week, I spoke with a friend of mine who is an advisor in the Midwest. He told me that since the pandemic hit, he’s lost quite a number of clients while many others went to cash. At Franklin Retirement, we had about 7% of our clients go to cash for a short period. Otherwise, we didn’t get the panic calls nor did we lose any clients.
I dug a little deeper. Were his clients mainly in the market or did he have many clients with safe annuities and guaranteed income streams? No, he answered, almost all of his clients’ funds were invested in the market.
I then told my friend about a column I saw in this week’s “Investment News,” one of the industry rags I read. The column talked about a survey done by the Alliance for Lifetime Income. The survey found that retirees with either pension income or annuities with lifetime income riders were a lot less likely to be concerned about market volatility and felt confident about their retirement plan. Additionally, it found that many pre-retirees or those in the early years of retirement have been reconsidering some aspects of their retirement plan since the pandemic struck. According to the survey, 6 in 10 pre-retirees were looking to course correct.
Predictable monthly income from annuities, along with Social Security and any pensions you might receive, will often times handle all your fixed monthly expenses and maybe even some of the luxuries we would all like to enjoy again in retirement. Remember, things like dining out, traveling, the Islands, cruises, and so on and so on?
A key part of what goes into Franklin Retirement’s holistic retirement plans is income planning. Making sure you don’t run out of income before you run out of time. If this pandemic has you concerned or if you have friends or family who are very concerned, you know how to find us. Our contact info is below. Let’s talk.
Enjoy the weekend with temps in the low to mid-80s versus the string of 95+ days that hopefully won’t return for a while.
Peter