In another session, "Bridging The Gap: Retirement Shortfalls," Frederick E. "Rick" Adkins, president and CEO of The Arkansas Financial Group in Little Rock, Ark., noted that clients don't always follow retirement plans, despite an advisor's best efforts to create sensible ones. "Client spending plans are not so predictable. Silly things can screw the model up, like when they give money to their kids or don't die at life expectancy," he joked.
Another panelist, Dan Moisand, a principal with the advisory firm Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando and Melbourne, Fla., said that an advisor should not try to correct a client's retirement shortfall by raising the portfolio's equity allocation because that increases risk. When the market drops, it's better to encourage the client to spend less and not increase their withdrawal rate, he added.