Strategies to Creating Certainty in Retirement #4 – Transcript

Jamie McIntyre
Hello, everyone and welcome to episode four of the ensemble retirement podcast series. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the impact that advisors can have by providing certainty in retirement. My guest today is Natalie Philips, Natalie has been working in the retirement product space since 2010. And Natalie is the current New South Wales State manager for Allianz retire, Natalie and I are going to chat about creating certainty in retirement plan, and how this impacts the certainty that clients are seeking, and helps their future outlook and also their mental wellbeing. Natalie, welcome to today’s podcast.

Natalie Philips
Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1
With that, let’s kick off let’s talk about the word certainty, certainty and how we can help clients with a perception of a certain future. Not you get out and you speak with lots of planners in that naturally from a product space. But tell me about some of the things that you talk with planners about every day about certainty.

Natalie Philips
So I think I Yes, I have been doing this a long time I disclose how long because that’ll show my package, but and actually have just come off the back of a trip up on bindles coast with the F AAA and another product provider, we had some peer group sessions. And none of the insights that advisors provided were of a surprise to myself. It’s what I’ve been discussing over the many years that I’ve been doing this week with many offices and advisors. And it’s around certainty means different things to different people. So that doesn’t really cover off. Certainty broadly. I know. But I think it’s really important that and I think that’s sort of highlights the importance of the relationship planners and advisors have with their clients. As we know, it goes far deeper than, you know, a first meeting or second meeting, some of these relationships have been built over the over the years, you get to know their family, their goals, their objectives. I always joke that planners are half psychologists, half half advisors, and I think that’s really important is that that certainty means different things to different people. But I think the word certainty has become more pronounced in some of the meetings that advisors are having for clients specifically in retirement, not so much in accumulation, but definitely in retirement. And I think there’s a few reasons for that one of those being that clients are aware that they’re likely to live longer, there is a lot more noise in the media and an awareness that that as a nation, we’re living longer we now Australia’s now the got the third highest life expectancy in the world. Obviously, Monaco and Japan hold first and second place, but but we are definitely living longer. And there’s a lot more awareness around that. And also the quality of life for a lot of those retirees is a lot higher than say what it was 4050 years ago. So they are much more focused on enjoying retirement doing, you know, those things that they’ve always wanted to do travel, spend time with the grandkids, grandkids, etc. And so those goals and objectives mean that clients probably need a little bit more certainty in their portfolio than say, again, what they did 30 or 40 years ago, because they know that they’re living longer. And they really have those ideals of what retirement is going to look like for them. And they want to make sure that those goals and objectives are met.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah, thanks that I looked, there was a bunch of things in there that we’re going to be able to dig into throughout this podcast today. three key things I just noted down was, well, the word certainly and we’ll dig into that a little bit further. I wrote down the word trusts, because I think trust is a foundation for let’s call it clients. And also let’s call it the industry and everything to to be built to provide a perception of certainty. So I think that comes off the back of trust. And you also mentioned I think, we’re part psychologists. I’ve had many clients say to me, thank you for the financial therapy session today. So, look, I do agree with you on that, though, I think, I think advisors have have shifted over time, and I’ve been doing this for quite a long time. And that is really digging deeper into client’s lives and getting a very deep understanding of what really drives them and what they really want. Let’s let’s talk about certainty, and you touched on one thing, which was most people seem to have a really strong level of certainty in their accumulation life or let’s call it their work life. You know, I suppose there’s a there’s their systems that support that. I suppose there’s industrial relations that supports people being employed and having a great sense of certainty of having an income and those those systems give. Give people confidence. And, and they trust those systems. And incidentally, and as we progress to retirement, it becomes a little bit less certain because oh, I suppose you’re on your own, aren’t you?

Natalie Philips
Absolutely. Yeah, those false contributions. So I know some of them are not forced, but But you know, we’re building our retirement savings. And that’s quite structured. And our employee, employers tend to handle that. And then it’s almost like we’re let loose once we meet a condition or release. So if you don’t have a planner, I’m a huge advocate for having an advisor in your life for many reasons. But yeah, if the client doesn’t have some guidance around that, I mean, there’s there’s a heap of risks that they’re not going to be aware of, and then they’re not going to be able to to manage in retirement.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about risks that they’re not aware of, and I think it’s the most people, particularly PAYG employees, and maybe just to put them in a box for a moment, they’ve had the systems in place that have supported them, you know, that there’s SGC contributions that are going in and sort of it’s, it’s all sorted for me, and they they trust those systems. And don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of things that people can do through that accumulation phase with a planet to even improve that. But there are there are a group of people that died. And that’s what creates, they’re generally the ones that are least certain when they get to retirement, because it’s a lot of it’s a lot of unknown, right?

Natalie Philips
Absolutely, yes. And I think you know, the goalposts have changed significantly. Again, like I said earlier from 3040 years ago, you know, it’s a very different world that we’re in, and with life expectancies, especially in Australia, being much higher than they what they were, you know, there’s there’s a much longer timeframe for which clients need to plan for.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah, absolutely. Look, one thing they do have certainty over is if they don’t have enough money at retirement, the government will step in, right, the age pension will, will step in at certain levels. And it’s, it’s really, I suppose, the age pension is there as a catch all a little bit like when someone’s unemployed in the accumulation phase that Centrelink there is a catch all to make sure you’ve got some money coming in to have some standard of living. But we’re not going to provide for ourselves to have a stronger standard of living in accumulation as well as in retirement. Right.

Natalie Philips
Absolutely. And it’s interesting, you’re talking about a catch all and I think, as a couple, the age pension can suffice is actually absolutely no bare necessity. But this is very much anecdotal feedback. But I’ve just like I said, kind of the back of a regional trip. And what’s really interesting is that a lot of advisors are starting to become aware that that single pension, you know, is not really sufficient, even at a bare minimum. And that’s because your bills really don’t go down that much food, yes, but they’ll allied on in your kitchen still allied on your right to steal your rates, a lot of those utility bills, they don’t go down that much. And the cost of living, as we know, is actually sky high at the moment. So as a couple, maybe the age pension would be a sufficient fallback option. But I’m starting to notice more and more advisors and clients, there’s some concerns around that single age pension, if a client decides to stay in their own home still,

Jamie McIntyre
yeah, look, you’re definitely right, that when we look at those numbers, a single pension on the assumption that a single person owns their own home, is certainly not going to cut it. And I mean, in my view, you kind of I don’t know the exact figures on the poverty line, but you would be under that because you just don’t have the cash flow to, you know, support everything that you may need. Yep, absolutely. Look, let’s not focus on the age pension, but that, but what that does is gives everyone a level of certainty in retirement, the superannuation guarantee scheme, or whichever term we use for that, that Superannuation Guarantee legislation also provides for those that have worked along the journey. And that is also a conversation about males and females. That often happens in the media. And really, it’s the lower income earner that gets impacted by the SGC. So yeah, really, there is some systems in place to get you to a point. But what we’re to what we want to talk about is creating certainty in a retirement plan. And help people or help the advisors out there and have a conversation about how can we create certainty in that retirement plan so clients can spend their time not worrying about funds running out and look, let’s let’s shift over and have a good conversation now about let’s call it products in the marketplace that can support that. Really, it all starts from good planning and good conversation with the with the plan is right. So let’s talk about let’s let’s jump over now and have a conversation about retirement products and particularly the space that you’re in that Tell us about how the product outcome that Allianz provide, can provide some certainty in retirement for a while not just clients, but for Australians.

Natalie Philips
Yeah, absolutely. So just to give everyone a little bit of color Alyansa retire plus is relatively new to the Australian market. So with any sort of been in market three years, but it’s very well established overseas, especially in the US have been around for about 13 years, the investment arm. A lot of people don’t realize, but actually we own PIMCO. So from an investment, side of things, they run the yield within our statutory fund. And I think Alex now was hit number one worldwide, is the number one insurer. So again, a huge company. And the beauty of that is that we can leverage that strength of a huge parent company here in Australia, and the caliber of investment specialists overseas to sort of create these new innovative income streams or retirement products for clients. So that’s really exciting. So I joined the team in March this year. And part of the reason for me joining is because of their focus on retirement income streams for clients, but making sure that the products that they were launching were very client centric. So just to give everyone a bit of background, they’ve done a lot of research for the product team here have done a lot of research with both advisors and clients about what they expect, and what they expect and need from from their super. And there was two surveys that really sort of, I like to highlight that they ran with clients and also advisors. What we found from a client perspective is that lifetime income from a client super was one of the number one priorities or goals. I don’t think there’s any surprises there. But 44% of the of the customers or clients that we surveyed said that was their number one priority, that’s what they valued the most. And then again, not So unsurprisingly, the advisors, if you look at what key risks they were looking to mitigate against in retirement, for clients, it was a lifetime income stream or mitigating longevity risk. So it’s funny that even though it was worded differently, and the approach to both clients and advisors was different with the surveys, the resounding outcome of those surveys, again, no surprise is that that clients and advisors are aligned in the fact that they expect and want to provide lifetime income streams to clients in retirement as part of their portfolio. So again, they did a huge body of work around, you know, what do clients actually want? And one of the things and I think, again, it won’t surprise any advisors listening. But what came out of that research was some of the barriers to entry on to more traditional lifetime income streams that are in the market has has been access to capital flexibility around capital and certainty around what the death benefit might be. And I think that’s, that’s fair, that that’s probably across the board. And I’m sure, Jamie, you would have experienced that with some of your clients as well, in your meetings with them around retirement planning. So Alex would hire class took on that goal and objective really seriously when they will look at forming a product. And to cut a long story short, they’ve they’ve formulated retirement income stream, a lifetime income stream called Agile, and that provides a lifetime income stream to clients for as long as they live. So there’s an obligation there from the statutory fund. So it is an insurance product. But the key difference between this offering and what else is in market is this flexibility around access to capital. So you can do partial withdrawals up to 5% annually. And then after a 10 year period, you’ve got full access to the money because we know some clients don’t buy green, but others I know that they they had a lifetime outlook could be a little bit too long for them to commit to. So I think a 10 year timeframe with the option to continue on for life is much more palatable, and gives advisors a bit more flexibility with planning as well, for the future.

Jamie McIntyre
I think there’s a few key things that come out of that now, which we’ll dig into. Look all over chat about the surveys and what I experience and whilst mine is not a survey, but it is experience with talking with hundreds of clients about retirement and what their greatest fears are. I think even if I go back a layer you mentioned that PIMCO we talk about certainty and I underpin that conversation with trust, Allianz, retire or Allianz is a very big company. PIMCO is another big company so that that adds a really good layer of trust. I think for not Just the clients, but also the advisors. Which is really, really important. And we talked about the survey and what I experienced look, fundamentally, every person’s greatest fear is running out of money in life, whether it be an accumulation phase, or the accumulation slash, retirement phase. So that fear is, I think, embedded in everyone’s psyche for their whole life, I need money to do the things I want, I can’t be running out. And particularly with retirees that let’s let’s have a talk about a little bit more about, like sibility at all comes from the plan is Lance, first that Brian to our podcasts, we had a really good chat about a few things. And I think lad who’s, who are who have been part of what I would say in air quotes the industry for a long time have had product providers with a lens of what the product provider wanted out of planning. Really. Yeah. And and we’ve all been looked at, I think, in a way indoctrinated by product providers in the past, but the past is the past. So let’s, let’s talk more about today. But I also think, and talking to other places through his podcast series, and also speaking with them, in general, there’s this fear of planners, as well as fear of clients, about those product providers want to get my money? And don’t let me get it back and lock it away. I mean, and I’m not really sure about that trade off, because life changes. Absolutely. So I look, it was really good to hear you talk about the flexibility of capital. And, and I think that’s really important from the planning. Walk for all of us planners out here to know and understand and, and to give further consideration that that a product such as Allianz, retired plus has and other providers out there who are offering flexibility.

Natalie Philips
Yeah, absolutely. And that doesn’t have to be a trade off. Traditionally, there’s been a real title for the West a bet against the life company on who’s going to live longer, though it very interestingly, if you look at the data, again, this is a bit of a side joke, but AC t actually has the longest life expectancy. And there’s a bit of a joke within our four walls here, that Tom, that’s because most of them have government pensions that never run out, and they’re trying to outlive their, their government pension. So there’s quality of life and a whole heap of other things that go into that. But that’s super interesting. So the AC T has a highest life expectancy in Australia,

Jamie McIntyre
but that doesn’t surprise me. Look, we talked with clouds about I’ll call it when you’re moving into retirement and from a different perspective now than just money is, you know, having things to do, and really having money to do those things. And, and a reason to live, I think, is one way to sum that up. And I’m not surprised when you say that, that the AC t do have the longer life expectancy because while they’re underpinned financially, I think that’s a reasonable assumption.

Natalie Philips
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll be moving to the AC T. When I retire, though, it is a little way for the beach. So that’s a trade off in itself,

Jamie McIntyre
that I don’t perceive you the time we’ve spent together as being a government employee, though.

Natalie Philips
Yes, I might, I might. I might have to just stay there during the week. Hopefully, that still counts and then transition over the weekend back to the coast.

Jamie McIntyre
Very good. Look, and I suppose it’s a good opportunity to to have a conversation about the outlook for clients and mental well being by having certainty, like your reference, the AC T, I think it would be I think it’s reasonable to assume that having the certainty of income is certainly going to be great for well being and, and mental health, mental health and, and I suppose I did say the reason to live whether that’s the right way to put that, but you know, having something having money underpinning the ability to go and do things that bring value to your life really,

Natalie Philips
absolutely so so it becomes less about what the actual income stream is, though the rates these days as you would be aware of very attractive, especially where the cash rate is currently sitting compared to what where it’s been over the last few years. But beyond that, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I think it’s like when you’re an employee, if something someone said to me, not you, you can be you can have a base salary with bonus upside, or you can just have a fully variable wage that’s based on your performance. I think I would guarantee most People are always gonna go for that base salary, because it’s that certainty that that we crave and we find necessary to give us peace of mind. And, you know, live our life without that added stress of where is that income going to come from to pay? You know, the bare essentials? So I actually think absolutely, that it also plays from a mental health perspective, a great role in providing consistent, boring, reliable cash flow to the bank account every month. I think that’s really important. Yeah,

Jamie McIntyre
I think I think nearly everyone will, that, you know, I mean, we could branch off into different types of people and things like that, but are those with different levels of wealth. But fundamentally, we all want some security. And I think even if I reflect back on COVID, you know, it was a good time to be grateful if you had a roof over your head, and you had food and water, right. And money coming in do that. I mean, that’s a different conversation that the government gave everyone, somebody to make sure of that. But what we’re talking about is more around your own money, and getting that certainty from a regular income coming in when the call it times are tough. Now, one thing you mentioned a moment ago, was, look at retirement products with certainty are more attractive in the current economic environment, you know, rates higher than they have been. But really, I don’t know that is that the is that for you something, but it’s a nice to have at the moment. But I suppose a few years back, those rates weren’t there. It’s still really important to have certainty of income at some level, would you agree?

Natalie Philips
Absolutely. And also, I mean, there’s a lot of product providers in market now. And we spoke about this before the podcast, you know, you’ve got generation life, you’ve got challenger a&p, north of law launched your product on their platform. And so I think there’s greater awareness that having something to underpin the portfolio that’s going to pay a lifetime income stream for the life of the clients really important. But a lot of these products allow you to participate in upside. So So those days where it’s just a fixed return, which is what the original annuities were, if you go back to Roman, ancient Rome times, when the first annuity was sort of born, but those days are almost gone. Majority of the providers actually, I would say all of the providers now allow you to participate in upside. So with some downside protection, so absolutely. You’re even if you’re locking in at a perceived low rate, those clients that say invested in a lifetime annuity, with CPR protection, say two years ago, I mean, they’ve they’ve seen their payments increased dramatically this year with where CPIs at. So it’s absolutely a little less about the return and also about peace of mind and security. And if there’s ability to participate in upside, then maybe the initial rate is less of a concern.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah, absolutely. Like it might be well, not might be it is more attractive right now, with higher rates of return, potentially, when you I was gonna say when you lock in your contract, that’s not the right term. So you should be talking here about flexibility in that. And that’s a bit of my old thoughts. Right? Yeah. When you, when you when you take on a an investment and your advisor recommends an annuity of some type, you’re coming in at an attractive time look, maybe no different to investing in a allocated or account based pension at a time when markets are down, you know, the upsides this shouldn’t eat straightaway. But I think the key thing we should talk about that is what you started to talk about, was you reference CPI being something that’s been of great benefit to those that own or have these investments now and annuities, would it be fair to say that the flexibilities they will help people, I’ll call it run through the cycles of economics over time and you reference the 10 year structure that’s available? What’s your thoughts on that?

Natalie Philips
So I think with the 10 year structure that’s new and unique to us, just to clarify, so others, in my opinion, much more lifetime commitment. So I think that that 10 year commitment, much more palatable with the research that we had, internally with clients and advisors. They found we all sort of discussed it that that that 10 year is a much more flexible roadmap to deal with and sale on a 30 year timeframe for a client because as we know, a lot of things can change. Clients can get divorced, you know, they might have a death of a loved one, you know, they might have a health scare and and decide to cash out all their money and go on a worldwide trip. So So I think that added flexibility is really, really important. And that’s really resonating well with with planners in the market.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah, that DEF CON stations with plan is about. And I’ve, I’ve had these conversations with other providers in this space, they talk about from the view of the annuity side, which is if if a husband wife at a million dollars investable, so to speak, and let’s assume it’s all in there super fun, because they’ve accumulated that together over time. The conversation I’ve had previously is that you’re potentially looking at putting a part of that money into an annuity, which could also mean that you also have some money available on the flexibility side, just talk me through that in the view of what else retired plus and their products and what you guys think about that?

Natalie Philips
Absolutely. And again, that’s across the board. So So I previously obviously worked at Challenger for those listening that know me. And then I moved across, as I said, to Allianz retire, plus in in March this year, and one of the key things that a BDM, or product provider will look at is, you know, will the product provide benefit to the client? And if so, what type of allocation might be suitable. And I think what’s really great is that a lot of the product providers now have spent a lot of time and effort producing calculators and tools to assist in that in that conversation and to also look at where there’s, there’s value to be added allowance trial, plus, we have a tool and calculator at this point in time, that’s available only to advisors. And it is deterministic, not stochastic. But what we found in market is currently a lot of advisors still used through x plan deterministic modeling. And what that will look at is, is an allocation appropriate, does it provide an added benefit to the client, and if so what amount, so a lot of the BDMS and bas that I work with, across the industry, there’s a very big awareness now that we need to help and assist in this space alongside the dealer group. So a lot of the research internal research, guys within your dealer group will have a view on this as well and hopefully provide some guidance. But absolutely, that I think those tools and calculators across the board are really integral and important to providing a guidance on the allocation that’s provided. But typically, what we’re seeing is a 15 to 25% allocation to these types of lifetime income streams in the client’s portfolio.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah, and I think I heard you say you’re building out more tools, that for the adviser of the advisors, and and it’s, I suppose, for us internet advisors, some are fairly entrenched in their ways as well. They will open for something new, but you know, something’s working really well. And, you know, it is what’s the best way for an advisor to start to resource this information, maybe from a an initial connection way. It doesn’t have to be ring Natalie or you know, have a conversation, where can they go to find good tools, not just Allianz, retired plus, but where can they go and research their own information?

Natalie Philips
Absolutely. So I think there’s, there’s a few white papers that are available in terms of asset allocation. So Mercer have a really great paper. And if anyone’s interested, I might actually shoot that through to you, Jamie, I have a copy of it. So I’ll shoot it through to you after this podcast, and for any advisors that that request it absolutely that I’m aware that it’s online, so you could probably actually Google it. So it’s Mercer white paper, it’s a few years old, but it just looks at what type of client would benefit from a lifetime income stream and what particular allocation might might be attractive or produce the, the optimum or best results for these to these clients. And what they’ve actually done is they’ve built a matrix where it looks at the client’s starting super balance, what income they’re projected to draw down year in year out to to meet their goals and objectives for retirement, and it comes out with it with a suggested allocation, that’s a really good place to start. So that’s, that’s a Mercer white paper that they produced. And then there’s loads of tools and calculators I’d be very, very surprised if the advisors weren’t aware of some of the other tools and calculators provided by other annuity providers in the market. And like I said, we’ve also got our new calculator and tool that’s available to advisors online, where we’ll look at is an allocation to Agile or lifetime income stream appropriate and what type of allocation would provide the best value to a client in retirement? out further to that though, I think the service provided by BDMS and PDAs in the market has really stepped up over the last few years and we actually have a little template and many fat find that advisors can fill out we don’t need client names. Obviously that would be you know, probably too much information but in terms of age, their goals or objectives, their starting super balance or projected super balance at retirement. What are they looking to achieve in terms of income, we can really quickly model bout particular scenarios within minutes and get an email back to you within, you know, probably 24 hours. And most of the players in the market do that. So they will look at the client’s goals and objectives, play around with the tools and calculators. And the great thing with the tools and calculators is there’s no there’s no agenda, all the assumptions, variable and amendable back end. So you can actually give us your dealer group assumptions or your office Bucha. If you’re a boutique office, your projected assumptions across all asset classes, we can actually model a particular client scenario for you and send it back for your viewing. And that I mean, in terms of efficiency, that’s great, but everyone needs to be all officers and planners are looking at the cutting more efficient. And I think if you can actually just initially look at something, we could do some of that legwork. If there’s value there, great, obviously, that you know, you can continue on, looking at whether that an allocation to a lifetime income stream is appropriate for a client. And if it’s not, you know, you really haven’t spent much time or looking at your possible alternative alternatives for your SOA is for clients. So as we know, looking at alternatives is part of your SOA requirements. That varies depending on your your licensee and your dealer group. But I think it’s a great value add,

Jamie McIntyre
yeah, look, you just got the thinking about from a scenarios point of view and a conversation that’s becoming more common with with clients is there a little bit more educated and they’re a little bit more mindful of their, let’s call it their best 10 years in retirement man, what I mean by best is more active, and they’d like to have flexibility to spend. And, you know, just thinking about for myself, you know, those clients that from 65 to 70, you’d want to spend a fair bit and that might sit around their allocated pension type money, and then a long term annuity that sits alongside that what’s called lifetime for a moment with flexibility, by the way that we need that that would give them you know, underpin an income amount that sits together with Centrelink. And you know, that’s potentially satisfactory for most people as well. So my tie video could tie in really well for that type of scenario as well.

Natalie Philips
Absolutely. A rule, a school of thought I should say, but a general rule that I know some advisors that are utilizing lifetime income streams use they actually will get their client to do two budgets, a budget of act for active retirement and then they will look at what and what are your bare minimum costs and what’s really interesting is especially those that are based in Melbourne or Sydney or are more city based, you know, the basic cost of living aged pension doesn’t cut it even for a couple so So you sort of need to look at you know, even though they’re spending 70 or 80 grand in the active phase of their retirement, they might need still need 50,000 A year to cover off their their bare essentials and so what is the guarantee that that’s going to be provided at the back end so look this you still have a lot of options you might receive an inheritance there’s the possibility that a client will downsize. But the other interesting point on that I had a really great meeting with an advisor on the Northern Beaches recently and I was a little bit shocked I should be more aware I’m a local up there actually lived up up that way don’t hold that against me. But the client was downsizing but there wasn’t a heap of money left over because the property market as we know has got hot again and even though there were downsizing they were moving to something that was closer to the water and a newer facility or unit and this after they paid all their fees and charges there wasn’t a heap of money left over which was super interesting. They got a bit of money into super with the downsizer contribution rules but it wasn’t what they anticipated it paying

Jamie McIntyre
yeah and that look that I think I’m we’re trying to speak as broadly as we can obviously today but definitely those in inner city areas the age pensions not going to cut it. So there those deeper conversations that definitely planners and having with their clients about, you know, options like downsizing, but really I kind of using air quotes again, the word downsizer means different things to different people. I have certainly, you know, for summer downsizers coming off 1000 square meter block and their houses run down to you know, a 600 square metre block. That’s nice brand new house and there’s not much money in the exchange either. But they’re the conversations planners need to have to uncover how they can deliver certainty, right?

Natalie Philips
Absolutely.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit more about annuities. I’m really curious about annuities and I’m sure advisors. And I say to you now look, there’s always that fear of a new product provider coming into your office, you know, with only a product provide a lens at how product providers as such as ellanse Retire plus connecting really well with advisors and getting, you know, getting them the details they need. So they can plan really well first, and then good planning conversations,

Natalie Philips
I think, I think it’s really important to just build rapport first with any advisor and just gain an understanding of their business and their client base and what they’re looking to solve for. Because every client, as we said earlier, is different. Every practice is a little bit different. And how they run things internally is a little bit different. And you know, there’s these structures, we need to be aware of SMA structures do they have mainly self managed super funds. So there’s, there’s a range of things we really need to be aware of. And then see if we, if we fit into that from a product perspective, if we fit into that ecosystem. The one thing that we took on board from the body of research that we deal with advisors is that there’s sort of a lack of flexibility around holding a lifetime income stream within an account based pension on platform, helping meet sis minimums paying the cash account. And that was, that was a really big theme in the research that we did. And so without divulging too much, or getting to produkty. Agile, again, has sold for that. So so when we launch on platform, we should be in November, and then hopefully all the other platforms will follow, we’re talking to all of them. That’s one of the goals you can invest direct, with Node super money to with Alyansa retire plus, but the goal objective is to fit into the current ecosystem to make advisors offices more efficient, not less efficient,

Jamie McIntyre
so that as we come to the close of our podcasts today, we’ve talked about creating certainty in retirement. We’ve talked about in some ways we’ve talked about from planners perspective, the stuff that I have shared, we’ve taught from an annuities perspective, how that can also create certainty. Look, for me, as a planner, we are always working together digging deep with clients, and really, we’re building trust, and they’re building trust the boss and, and it’s actually about us trusting them to, you know, to want to have planning done and progress through a planning process. So we can get them to, I suppose having a perception of certainty with what we, what we build, and what we recommend. And then the work we continue to do to implement all of that over time. Now, net, tell me and tell the listeners, you work with planners. You’re also where you work for a product provider, tell me in your view, how to planners provide certainty, and how does an annuity product providers support that?

Natalie Philips
Absolutely. So I think that you mentioned the word planning before that, that that word is critical. So it’s a plan, it’s, it’s everyone’s on the same page, there’s there’s a combined agreement around what clients are going to spend, and what the anticipated returns are projected to be for from the advisor, point of view. And it’s really around committing to that plan and executing it. I think that gives clients a huge peace of mind that they, you know, you need a plan for for all things in life. And I think our financial plan is the most important because it gives you that security and that certainty. And the great thing about having an ongoing adviser relationship is you can reassess those plans. So if they’re not, you know, they’re not working the way that was anticipated it that’s why those annual reviews are so important because you’re revisiting those goals and objectives. Revisiting the plan, and adjusting as you go along, depending on market returns, where the clients invested, and even their own risk profile, we haven’t talked about risk profiling. in great detail. I know it’s very varied how that’s executed in in each office and with each planner and each dealer group. But it goes deeper than just a dinner fact find or risk profile. It’s it’s really getting to know your client. And I think that can change and that evolves over time. We know a lot of clients actually get more conservative, as typically as they get older. And that’s that’s just something to be aware of, as well. So I think that role of a lifetime income stream or role of annuities does become naturally becomes more pronounced as clients get older because they generally speaking do start to navigate towards certainty as they get older.

Jamie McIntyre
Yeah, look that it’s an interesting one, a risk profile questionnaire is mostly a compliance tool, if that’s all you do, right. All right. Once again, I referenced we dig deep we talk to clients on a deeper level about what is really important to them and what their real risks are, whether whether real or perceived. help educate them and add and make sure they take an appropriate amount of risk with their money with their law with everything. So yeah, it’s really important that we you like Get to that layer and our answer type plus an annuity providers are going to provide some support around different risks for different clients. And I think that’s something that I’ve taken out of today that, you know, annuities sit in a place for clients to create a level of certainty and natural herbs. Thank you so much for your time today.

Natalie Philips
Well, good. Thanks for having me, Jamie. My pleasure.