Year 2
• Explore ideas for the future. This is where the conversation really begins, she said. “Let’s sit back and envision retirement.”
• Assess the client’s long-term-care need. Underwood-Kotner said more people, especially women, want to engage in this conversation.
• Assess the client’s life and disability insurance needs.
• Assess their healthcare options. Advisors should make sure that they are addressing healthcare options with clients because it’s always among the top five things they want to discuss.
• Look at pre-need planning for funerals. Funeral planning, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, is a popular topic, she said.
• Create an estate planning checklist. These are items to start the organization process, so you don’t have to worry about it once the client enters retirement.
• Continue to foster spring cleaning.
Year 3
• Discuss with clients where they are going to live. This is a big item in the overall retirement plan, Underwood-Kotner said. “Are they going to age in place, are they going to be snowbirds, or are they going to get up and move South?”
• Plan home upkeep. For clients who are going to age in place, identify the big-ticket items they will need, such as the repair of their roof, furnace, plumbing, etc., before their paychecks stop.
• Refinance mortgages or home equity loans: Get this done while the clients are still working.
• Have the client do a spring cleaning.
• Rerun and review your client’s retirement income plan and start testing it out from this point forward.
Year 4
• You and the client should discuss tax strategies, and possibly include a tax professional. This is another top five item for clients. “People want to make sure they have tax-smart strategies in retirement,” she said.
• Practice retirement: At this point, even though clients haven’t retired yet, they should pretend they have stepped into it. They should spend as if they are retired, see how it goes and then adjust.
• Encourage clients to explore “phased retirement.” This makes the transition healthier, she said, explaining that it’s difficult to go from working 40 hours a week to nothing.
• Continue spring cleaning.
• Rerun and review the retirement income plan.
Year 5
This is the last year before the passage stage, where the shock and awe of retirement starts to wear off and the clients are trying to figure out what their new life looks like.
• Finalize health insurance needs. Clients get really nervous about health insurance, Underwood-Kotner said, so make sure they are confident and comfortable here.
• Allocate one or more years of expenses to cash. This is the rule of thumb.
• Continue spring cleaning.
• Review the client’s retirement budget.
• Review dates to turn on protected income sources and execute.
• Review the last five years.
Once clients enter the “passage” phase, Underwood-Kotner said advisors can do several things to stay engaged with clients and get them used to the new normal:
• Help them celebrate retirement by hosting semiannual parties for your other clients who have retired that year.
• Produce a “Happy Retiree” newsletter with ideas for travel and cooking.
• Expose clients to volunteer opportunities; many of them don’t know how to get started.
• Sponsor one to two charities a year so that clients can get involved if they choose to.
• Build a happiness retirement wall.
• Host happiness events to keep them engaged and around their peers.