Insurer Asks Investors to Consider Retirement’s 4 C’s

The tool asks investors to consider four main aspects of retirement: Clarity about their retirement future; comfort of living in retirement; cost of living, particularly in light of myriad types of inflation; and certainty of retirement income through various types of annuities

Allianz Life’s tips provide a more thorough, personal approach for investors and advisers than other retirement investing educational tools the firm has developed in the past, Katie Libbe, Allianz Life vice president of consumer insights, told PLANADVISER.

“The 4C’s is special because it brings everything together in the five to ten years transition phase [preceding retirement],” Libbe said. “We have done a lot of good work as an organization to educate advisers on tax-efficient strategies, Social Security drawdown, asset allocation in the accumulation phase and getting alpha off of investors’ portfolios. The 4Cs takes all of these concepts and strategies down to a consumer level—and reminds the adviser that all of these smart and wonderful approaches are about the person and what that person needs in retirement.”

Allianz is promoting the 4C’s as a feature at the top of its homepage along with a white paper by Gary C. Bhojwani, chairman of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America. Essentially a reality check for investors, 4C’s asks about their expectations in retirement—and tells them how realistic those expectations might be. The first question on clarity, for instance, asks participants how much less they will be able to spend in retirement. Most people, Allianz tells investors, expect to spend 20% less in retirement. In reality, people earning $26,000 a year are only able to cut their expenditures by 10% in retirement, according to Allianz, while those earning $104,000 annually can get by on an average 14% curtailment in expenditures.