Financial advisors are underestimating the advances that have been made in extending people’s lives and they’re not planning for clients’ extra years, industry thought leader and author Ric Edelman says.
Edelman, who founded Edelman Financial Engines and is also a radio host, has launched a podcast, “The Truth About Your Future with Ric Edelman,” airing five days a week. The podcast is aimed at advisors looking for the knowledge they need to properly prepare their clients, many of whom will live to be 100, Edelman says, and it gives advisors and investors information that he says isn’t widely known.
Edelman spoke of five things that are going to matter for the future of personal finance: people’s longevity; retirement security; blockchain and digital assets; health and wellness; and “exponential technologies,” which refers to tech that grows and changes at an exponential rate in terms of its speed or capacity.
“The innovations that are happening now will radically extend life expectancy,” he says. “If you are alive in 2030, you will probably live to be 100 years of age or beyond. We need investment technologies that conform to that reality,” Edelman says. “A longer life span has profound implications for future planning.”
And yet, most actuarial tables, including those of the IRS, project that people will live into their 80s and 90s, not 100s, he says. That means financial advisors are not planning glide paths for clients that are properly aligned with their longer life spans and are switching from equities to bonds and other more conservative investments too early.
“Most financial planners are not aware of the exponential extension of life that is occurring,” Edelman says. In addition, “most portfolios do not include enough investments in technological innovations” that would offer investors opportunity.
There are innovations being developed in the scientific, academic and financial fields that will give advisors opportunity to help and extend life expectancy planning, Edelman claims.
He’ll explore these innovations in his podcasts, which are five to 15 minutes long when they air Monday through Thursday. His Friday broadcasts, which are longer, will include guests from the sciences, academia and finance, he says.
“We need to acknowledge that the world is changing rapidly and update financial planning to include the longer life span and the impact such things as inflation will have on these plans,” he adds. “Clients will be very receptive to these conversations as long as the conversations include hope and strategies for the future.”