‘Happier retirement’ the focus of new advice study

By Grace Ormsby

September 17 2019
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A more holistic style of pre-retirement advice is being trialled to help older Australians transition more happily into their retirement years.

According to a joint statement from Allianz Retire+ and Macquarie University, the “landmark” three-year project will see how advice targeted towards health, wealth, social, cognition, emotional and motivational considerations pre-retirement can enable individuals to better plan for the rest of their lives.

Macquarie University associate professor Joanne Earl will collaborate with Allianz Retire+ on the project, which will work with Australian retirees and financial advisers to measure adjustment or “happiness” in retirement that is attainable through the receiving of holistic advice.

Associate professor Earl will be focusing on the timing and conditions of an individual’s work exit in the project, with the research extending on her previous work, which looked at the importance of resources or “buckets”: health, wealth, social, cognition, emotional and motivational factors.

Her earlier research looked to understand how each bucket impacted on keeping people well in retirement.

As part of the new study, her team will practically apply the resources model and engage clients in training and discussions about planning for retirement, specifically looking to incorporate career, finance and health advice when thinking about retirement.

The new project will track Australians transitioning to retirement and guide them in planning their exit or enable them to reconceptualise their workforce participation.

According to a statement, this will enable transitioning individuals to revise their plans with each new input of advice, and will research the impact of active planning across the different buckets.

The associate professor has noted that “we think the conditions of exit are a really critical part of the retirement planning decision process”.

She cited successive waves of results from the multipurpose household survey to indicate that they know “there were 177,500 people who said they were retired in phase one who were back out looking for work in phase two”.

“The primary two reasons for why this was happening was because they were worried about money and they were bored,” she said.

“That says to me, the question about timing is not as self-evident as you might think.”

Commenting on the research’s method, associate professor Earl said “rather than just financial advice, early on in the process, we’ll be introducing people to careers counselling or careers advice, as well as a medical assessment to challenge their thinking about health”.

“Helping people to go through that decision-making process before they start talking to a financial adviser will give people a lot more information to work with,” she explained.

“Those people that have been through this process should make better-qualified decisions than those people that are in a control group.”

According to Allianz Retire+’s head of product and customer experience, Jacqui Lennon, the research has the potential to redefine the way advice is delivered to retirees.

“This research has the potential to rescript how we approach retirement advice, so as an industry, we are creating confidence for Australians in retirement,” she commented.

“We know from speaking with retirees that when it comes to making decisions about their retirement, it’s never purely a financial conversation.

“It’s emotional, philosophical and financial.”

She considered that this research “should define exactly what trusted advice looks like and will provide insight into what role advisers can play in setting up people for a happy retirement”.

“Post-royal commission, many advisers are struggling to define their value proposition, and with 1,000 Australians retiring a day, there has never been a more pressing need to undertake this research.”

For associate professor Earl, the expectation of the research’s outcome will be that retirees will be able to make more informed choices and will have revised their plans as a result.

“This should lead to them increasing their adjustment in retirement and overall see them having happier retirements,” she said.

About the author

Grace Ormsby

Grace is a journalist on Momentum Media's nestegg. She enjoys being able to provide easy to digest information and practical tips for Australians with regard to their wealth, as well as having a platform on which to engage leading experts and commentators and leverage their insight.

About the author

Grace Ormsby

Grace is a journalist on Momentum Media's nestegg. She enjoys being able to provide easy to digest information and practical tips for Australians with regard to their wealth, as well as having a platform on which to engage leading experts and commentators and leverage their insight.

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