How advisers are using IRIS solutions to help create stronger, more resilient retirement strategies
Financial advisers know great retirement advice isn’t just managing investments. It’s designing strategies that help clients step into retirement with confidence – and stay confident throughout it.
That means flexibility, clarity – and increasingly – using innovative retirement income streams (IRIS) to build income strategies that clients can trust.
In the Lifetime Income Series, advisers share how they’re layering income sources, strengthening client conviction through modelling, and using lifetime income to deepen trust and engagement across the retirement journey – all while maintaining full investment control.
Here’s how they’re doing it in practice – and what it means for both clients and advisers.
1. Layering income streams for better control
Relying solely on an account-based pension (ABP) may leave retirees exposed. Advisers in the series share how layering a lifetime income product with flexible access to capital, can give clients the confidence they need – putting advisers firmly in the driver’s seat to help steer better member outcomes.
Lifetime income products help advisers separate regular income for life from flexible capital, giving advisers more tools to navigate client needs and objectives.
As Ben Hillier (Director Retirement, AMP) explains: “It combines investment choice, flexibility and transparency, as well as income for life.”
Layered income empowers advisers in the driving seat – giving them strategic control, while expanding the value of advice given to clients.
2. Turning strategy into action through modelling
A strong strategy is only powerful if clients can see the value and believe in it. Advisers can use modelling to help clients move from hesitation to action.
Sue Morris (Head of Strategic Advice & Senior Adviser, Hyland Financial Planning) shares an example of a couple in their early 60s who wanted to retire and relocate. For
each person, she paired an account-based pension with deferred lifetime income funded through downsizer proceeds.
At the start of retirement, this couple made the most of this strategy by drawing down the minimum from each account-based pension and drawing down a once off lump sum from each deferred lifetime income account to meet their income needs. At this point in time, it gave them the same income they would have received if they only had an account-based pension, while optimising their possible future income including their ability to be eligible for a future age pension. It’s a solution combo that’s seen across practices and it gives advisers a tangible way to show the impact of their advice. In this example, modelling showed around $130,000 in today’s dollars as a possible uplift in future age pension benefits for this couple over an approximate 20-year period.
Across couples who hold MyNorth Lifetime, 74% of modelled strategies which were undertaken by their advisers showed an age pension increase for couples of more than $100,000 in today’s dollars over a 20-year period.
3. Keeping structures simple, and confidence high
Layered retirement income structures can sound technical to clients, so advisers keep them simple by:
· Giving each bucket a job: income, lump sums, growth
· Using plain language diagrams and flow charts
· Showing IRIS + ABP versus ABP-only outcomes
· Showing range of potential outcomes to set expectations clearly
When clients understand the moving parts, they have confidence in both the structure and the adviser shaping it. That clarity becomes a relationship advantage: clients stay engaged, informed and loyal.
4. Managing volatility with flexible drawdowns
Volatility isn’t going away, but the stress clients have around it can.
Advisers in the series highlight how lifetime income gives them a lever during market dips – it may be able to do this by reducing drawdowns from lifetime income to as low as $1 as it is not subject to the statutory minimum drawdown rates, so portfolios may be able to recover.
This fits naturally with bucketing strategies and allows advisers to help their clients:
· Preserve growth assets
· Maintain client lifestyle
· Keep clients calm and aligned to the plan.
It’s a proactive tool that reinforces adviser value and keeps advisers at the centre of the client relationship throughout retirement. They continue to be the go-to person for retirement advice.
5. Managing risk with SMILE (and avoiding regret)
Confident retirement planning covers both financial and emotional risks. And advisers can use the SMILE framework to make complex risks easy to understand.
· Sequencing: may reduce forced sales in a client’s portfolio in down markets
· Market: help balance growth with defensive buckets
· Inflation: indexed Age Pension and lifetime income
· Longevity: help provide an income for life
· Emotional: supports client behaviour and confidence
Ben Hillier noted a sixth, human risk: regret – the cost of living too cautiously due to the fear of running out. Once an income that never runs out is in place, that can change.
Hillier noted: “Our clients with lifetime income are gaining an average 60% more in retirement income than their counterparts*… it’s life-changing if you think about how much bigger travel that might represent, or how much they’re helping the kids.”
The framework gives advisers a powerful behavioural anchor in reviews and planning conversations. When their fear of running out were addressed, clients give themselves permission to enjoy what they’ve worked for. And advisers can become the partner who unlocked that life confidence.
6. Setting estate expectations to reinforce trust
Lifetime income products are designed for providing income during retirement, not to maximise inheritance – and advisers are transparent about that early.
Kiru Anantharaj (Retirement Specialist, AMP) explains that death benefit treatment depends on life expectancy. However, because the benefit of lifetime income often reduces pressure on ABP assets, clients may end up leaving more than expected.
Having open conversations protects trust, sets clear expectations, and strengthens adviser-client relationships across retirement years and family generations.
Why this matters for advisers IRIS doesn’t replace traditional retirement advice. It enhances the value advisers bring, helping them reach more clients, with better outcomes and stronger confidence.
By layering income, modelling clearly, and addressing both emotional and financial risks, advisers are delivering:
· More resilient retirement plans
· Stronger client conviction and wellbeing
· Flexible levers through market cycles
· Earlier and more confident retirements
· Clear demonstration of ongoing value
· Higher retention and referrals
· Deeper lifelong client relationships
As Sue Morris put it: “Once clients understand the structure, they stop holding back. They give themselves permission to live.” That’s the power of modern retirement advice: helping clients live fully, while positioning advisers as the long-term partner who helped make it possible.
Listen to the full Lifetime Income Series on Ensombl to hear the strategies advisers are using to add value, drive confidence and grow.
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What you should know
The information in this article has been provided by NMMT Limited ABN 42 058 835 573, AFSL 234653 (NMMT) It is for adviser use only and isn’t intended for retail clients. Any advice is general only and does not take account of your client’s personal objectives, financial situation or needs, and a client should consider whether this information is appropriate for them before making any decisions. MyNorth Super and Pension is issued by N. M. Superannuation Proprietary Limited ABN 31 008 428 322, AFSL 234654 (NM Super) as trustee of the Wealth Personal Superannuation and Pension Fund ABN 92 381 911 598, in which MyNorth Lifetime and MyNorth Super and MyNorth Pension accounts are offered. It’s important your client considers their circumstances and reads the MyNorth Super & Pension PDS and TMD available from northonline.com.au before deciding what’s right for them. MyNorth is a registered trademark of NMMT.
The adviser remains responsible for any advice and services they provide to clients using this information, including making their own enquiries and ensuring that the advice/services are appropriate and in accordance with all legal requirements. Financial advisers must not attribute any advice to NMMT nor suggest that North is the author of any part of that advice. The views and opinions of the advisers and any AMP employee in this article are theirs and may not represent or depict your experience. It is not a guarantee, promise or reflection of other user’s experiences. Advisers have not been paid to provide their view or opinion in this article. https://www.northonline.com.au/product-documents
All Centrelink and tax information is based on NMMT’s understanding of the applicable legislation and is subject to change.
* This example is illustrative only and does not take into account the financial objectives, situation or specific needs of any individual. In this situation, the $130,000 uplift in Centrelink benefits is an approximation for a couple spread over the first 20 years of retirement. The effectiveness of any strategy is dependent on your clients particular facts and circumstances. Results will vary and no suggestion is made about how any solution, or strategy will perform for your client.
** This statistic is based on information provided by financial advisers over the second half of 2024, using member data held by NMMT. NMMT obtained information from 100 advised couples, whose financial adviser used MyNorth Lifetime and allocated 50% to Lifetime Income and 50% to an Allocated Pension at retirement for each individual. From this group, 76% of advised couples were eligible to receive an increase in age pension of more than $100,000 in today’s dollars spread over the first 20 years of retirement.
*** The 60% more on average in retirement income is based on analysis done in May 2025 by North. We observed the retirement income of over 250 members holding MyNorth Lifetime accounts against the retirement income of MyNorth Allocated Pension members who didn’t hold a MyNorth Lifetime account. We looked at retirement income that members received from MyNorth Lifetime, MyNorth Allocated Pension, and our estimate of members’ eligible Centrelink entitlements with and without MyNorth Lifetime. Actual outcomes may vary for each individual due to a variety of factors and there is no guarantee that your client will achieve the average 60% outcome shown.
