“You want a way to make sure that there will be sufficient assets to support the survivor who lives to be 90.”

Baby boomers are reaching retirement age. This year Bill Clinton, George Bush, Cher and Donald Trump will turn 60.

Financial services firms are taking note of this tipping point. For years they have been encouraging investors to save for retirement, a practice known in the industry as accumulation planning. Don’t expect them to stop – they make money on all those assets, after all. But now the firms are adding new products and new tools to help their customers manage their assets throughout the remaining years of their lives, a practice known as distribution planning.

Impact Technologies Group, a financial planning software company and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, has recently launched Retirement Road Map, a complete sales system that offers financial advisors a retirement distribution planning tool for the baby boomer market.

Retirement Road Map came just in time for National Life, said Ron Merolli, the insurer’s director-advanced sales.

“Most of the financial services industry has been focused on accumulation and estate planning, but until now little energy has been turned to distribution tax planning, which is very different. Once the baby boomers have filled up their 412(i) plans, or perhaps at 50, they start doing a fast stashing of assets over the next 10 years, then they have to look at distribution tax planning,” Merolli said.

The market for retirement planning is set to soar. The U.S. Census Bureau records 76 million baby boomers in the country, more than a quarter of the entire population. The number of retirees is expected to double in the next few years, and those retirees are going to need good information for their financial planning.

Clients want to know whether they have enough, or whether they will outlive their assets, said Merolli. Now with Impact’s Retirement Road Map, financial advisors can sit down with clients in the 50 to 65 year-old range and examine all their assets – Social Security, pensions and savings, and develop a plan that covers the rest of their lives.

That includes active retirement when people are apt to travel extensively and then later in life when they tend not to be as active. The planning combines actuarial information with financial planning products such as insurance and annuities to offer some useful tools. It also includes health products like critical illness and long term care policies to cover health issues experienced in the retirement years.

Looking at a married couple at age 65, for example, there is a 40 percent chance that one of them will live to be 90.

“You want a way to make sure that there will be sufficient assets to support the survivor who lives to be 90,” he said. With Retirement Road Map, advisors can sit down with clients and get well beyond the expected advice – don’t put all your money in aggressive growth stocks when you’re 60, and don’t put it all in CDs either.

“The software helps the advisor deal with the individual’s risk tolerance, and it is simple for the advisors to explain and the clients to understand,” said Merolli.

Retirement Road Map analyzes a client's needs, income and assets, and assists advisors in determining appropriate policies, annuities and other planning options. It also includes a detailed consumer brochure designed to help advisors market their services.

“The brochure shows how concerns shift during retirement – planning for retirement is very different than planning during retirement,” said Maxey Sanderson, vice president, product development at Impact. “Decisions at the start of retirement impact an overall financial plan for the balance of the client's life.”

Retirement Road Map is offered by Impact as a Web-based platform, desktop application or Tablet PC application. Results can be derived in just a few seconds.

“It’s ridiculously easy,” Merolli said. And, it requires minimal training.

For years National Life has used Impact’s Wealth Planning Suite, which automates the financial sales process across an enterprise, from collecting client information to developing a personalized financial plan. Retirement Road Map is a part of PlanLab that is used in addition to the Wealth Planning Suite.

“We have been working with Impact very closely,” Merolli added. “They are very smart people, and they really know what they are doing.”

Distribution planning is complex, said Kevin Clay, president of Impact. Some information is provided as monthly income at retirement, some investments pay out quarterly, and other information is available in terms of current asset values and can change daily.

“The fundamental problem in the industry is that few advisors have built distribution planning into their practice. Those advisors that do will enjoy a distinct market advantage for the next 10 years,” Clay said.

Retirement Road Map compares known retirement income streams to retirement needs, and then calculates the value today necessary to make up the difference. As a result, there is a single number to compare to assets or investments. Impact makes complex calculations easy to understand so clients can make important decisions. Retirement Road Map shows a strategy for each year of retirement to assure predictable income while maximizing investments. Clients can use the information to keep their spending on track with assets and any retirement earnings.

www.impact-tech.com

www.nationallife.com