The investment assessment for “Jill,” meanwhile, says she is aggressive and wants to “go for it” but the situation makes you uncomfortable about being in an equity-heavy portfolio because a nasty bear market could put her goals in jeopardy. Her risk capacity conflicts with her tolerance.
So not only does your assessment conflict with the dimensions of risk, capacity and perception, but Jack’s results conflict with Jill’s.
It sounds like a problem that only plagues young newlyweds, but it’s actually common for clients in all age groups. I’ve seen it happen to retirees who have been married for decades. Often, the issue is that they have “enough,” so one logical argument is that if they can afford to take on risk, why shouldn’t they? The counterargument is also compelling: Because they have enough, they don’t need to take on much risk, so why should they?
Among the approaches I have seen to navigating a couple’s conflicting risk tolerances is to either negotiate a common portfolio or create two (or more) portfolios. Then you can use the assessments as a coaching tool and also select the level of risk for the client. Naturally, this approach can work if the planner is good at handling the accompanying negatives.
I haven’t seen a study done on how planners handle risk conflicts among couples. Anecdotally, it appears to me that negotiating a common portfolio is the most common approach. I can’t say this is driven by planning software, but it is convenient that most software essentially asks for a unified portfolio to run its calculations.
In the case where Jack is moderate and wanting to be conservative and Jill is as aggressive as wants to be, the likely resolution is a moderate portfolio mix. And most planners would probably go along with that idea, especially given the risk capacity concern.
The planner’s task is then to educate the clients about expected portfolio behavior and coach them accordingly. We don’t want Jack to freak out when markets are doing poorly or when he fears they will do poorly. We also don’t want Jill to get greedy or suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out) when markets do well.
The coaching on this usually revolves around the goals and the relationship of the couple. Most of our clients’ longer-term goals could benefit from a range of different portfolio structures that would all work well for them. I haven’t seen a goal for which a 60/40 was appropriate but a 55/45 wasn’t. If the portfolio was reasonable to begin with, neither a bull nor a bear market is likely to make the mix a poor choice.
Even if Jack and Jill both agree that the mix isn’t what they would do if left on their own, they know that they agreed to do it together and that each could feel uneasy in certain situations, Jack when markets fell and Jill when they rose. By identifying those situations ahead of time and discussing them, Jack and Jill would be less likely to abandon a sound plan.
If, on the other hand, the portfolios are split up, and some is put in a conservative mix for Jack and some in an aggressive mix to appease Jill, overall the effect could be moderate in the aggregate. Jack is likely to be happy during bear markets and Jill happy during bull markets. (This is particularly popular if one of them has an ex-spouse.) All is good, right?