Financial advisors need to get real with their clients about retirement and longevity.

Clients can always turn to advisors for help with numbers when it comes to retirement and other financial goals, says Mike Lynch, vice president of strategic markets for Radnor, Pa.-based Hartford Funds. But numbers are an abstraction, he adds. Advisors should be asking financial behavior and lifestyle questions to help clients create realistic, actionable goals and plans.

Retirement planning too often takes on a one-dimensional feel as it tends to focus on savings and investing needs, Lynch says. While these are important topics, advisors need to help their clients create a vision of the future they are planning for.

“There aren’t the same pools of resources available to advisors for these other topics as there are on the financial side of things,” Lynch says. “Most advisors can predict what you need to save and help you get to where you need to be, financially speaking. But longevity planning needs to take into account non-financial issues.”

Lynch says this can be accomplished by asking deeper questions to help clients think about the future.

Using research from the Hartford Funds’ partnership with MIT AgeLab, Lynch offers three questions for retirement planning that advisors can use to help expose their clients’ feelings about crucial longevity issues.

“These are effective because they’re very simple, unassuming questions that allow the client to open up and have a conversation,” Lynch says. “Retirement isn’t a calculation, it’s a conversation. While advisors are very good at listening, they’re not always sure about how to initiate these kinds of conversations.”

Question No. 1: “Who will change my light bulbs?”

Advanced age is often accompanied by advancing health problems and declining mobility, Lynch says, but most people plan on aging within their home as they enter retirement. Clients will have to consider whether they will be the ones to climb on a ladder to change difficult-to-reach light bulbs as they enter their 70s, 80s and 90s.

Clients need to be prompted to think about how they will handle simple maintenance tasks to consider how they will manage the upkeep of their homes if they are unable to do so independently.

Often, this kind of question can help clients decide whether they want to age in place and whether they need to prepare their home for a time when climbing stairs and entering or leaving the bathtub may become more difficult.

“As we get older, our homes get older too,” Lynch says. “As an advisor, you think of tools and resources that you can help connect clients with. Maybe a builder that specializes on aging-in-place issues that can help them create a safe space to age within.”

Question No. 2: “How will I get an ice cream cone?”

A well-planned retirement offers individuals greater opportunities for leisure. After leaving the workforce, few aging individuals envision themselves alone or shut in, so few consider how they will be able to go out and meet their friends.

Clients need to be prompted to consider their transportation options in retirement, and how they will engage in the leisurely activities they have enjoyed or fantasized about throughout their working lives, Lynch says.

“As I close my eyes and think about the next phase of my life, what do I plan on doing, and will I have access to transportation that will allow me to do that?” he asks. “This is a financial planning issue too. For the average couple in their 70s, the No. 1 out-of-pocket expense is their home. No. 2, believe it or not, is transportation.”

This question helps clients realize that there may be a time when they have to turn over driving responsibilities to family members or other caregivers for the remainder of their lives, create a financial plan to address their needs—and realize that losing the ability to drive does not necessarily mean sacrificing the activities they enjoy. Advisors can help by making clients aware of ride-sharing services, public transportation and specialized senior transportation services in their area, Lynch says.

Question No. 3: “Who will I have lunch with?”

Too often, retirement and longevity planning minimizes or outright ignores a client’s emotional well-being, Lynch says. Social activity is central to emotional health.

“I think this is the most important question of the three,” Lynch says. “We’ve seen the difference between folks who are enjoying fulfilling retirements and spending time with people versus [those] who don’t. Those who retire after work has been everything in their life, we find that they stay home, aren’t mobile, and physical and mental health issues can start to affect them.”

Clients should be prompted to think about how they will continue to grow and evolve their social network, Lynch says; their friendships will have to evolve to carry them through a retirement that could last three decades or more.

This question helps clients think about their social network over their life cycle. Advisors may want to recommend educational classes, recreational activities and social clubs to clients who have difficulty maintaining social relationships after retirement as their living situation and lifestyles evolve.

Lynch notes that women are better at planning around social and emotional needs than men, because they retain stronger networks in and out of the workforce.

“The fastest growing group of divorcées, agewise, are over the age of 50,” Lynch says. “Generally speaking, it’s because husband and wife come together after their careers and [suddenly] they have all this time together. The man hasn’t kept up his social network and every day gets up and asks the woman, ‘What do we plan on doing today?’ She says, ‘I already have a life and things going on with me. I can’t spend 100 percent of my time with you.’ It becomes uncomfortable, and eventually one might seek a divorce. You need to think about this question and social options with male clients in particular.”

Advisors can adapt similar multi-dimensional questions to help clients clearly consider other future financial goals like buying a home, educational saving, philanthropy and entrepreneurship.

Retirement and longevity, however, remain the largest financial planning issues faced by most clients, Lynch says, and the most difficult to translate from abstractions to real-world terms. Advisors who can help clients envision their retired future will add more value in their financial plans.

“The theme is longevity and how you differentiate yourself in the sea of sameness that is financial planning,” Lynch says. “Investment returns have almost become table stakes. Advisors of the future really have to think and plan on dimensions besides the financial one that they’ve traditionally addressed.”