Geopolitics Drive Advisers to Build Resilient Portfolios

Even before the current conflict in the Middle East began in February, global risks were a key concern for financial professionals. Security Benefit Life Insurance Co., which surveyed 202 financial professionals in the U.S. in February, found that geopolitical conflict, more than inflation or recession, influenced how advisers positioned investments in client portfolios.

After two years of closely tracking the registered investment adviser industry, Security Benefit’s February survey was expanded to include a broader mix of financial professionals in addition to RIAs, resulting in a pool of 50 registered investment advisers, 50 hybrid advisers and 100 non-RIA professionals.

“We found that advisers share many common views but differ in how they put those views into practice when working with clients on their retirement plans,” said Justin Jacquinot, Security Benefit’s head of independent marketing and RIA sales, in a statement.

That shift was already showing up in portfolio strategy. Among respondents, 40% of advisers expected to increase allocations to international equities, signaling a greater emphasis on diversification away from the U.S. as global dynamics evolved. Managing downside risk also remained a central priority, with 83% actively using diversification strategies to help mitigate potential losses and 70% viewing downside protection as a key component of portfolio construction.

Security Benefit’s financial professional economic outlook index, which reflected the broader adviser base, registered 59 out of 100 for the first quarter of 2026—up from 53 in Q4 2025, when only RIAs were polled—indicating modestly strong sentiment across the industry.

The survey showed that client behavior was largely consistent across different fields of financial advice. About 40% of surveyed financial professionals said that at least 30% of their clients spent less than they reasonably could in retirement. Advisers also reported similar views on client confidence, with many seeing clients as underconfident about maintaining their lifestyle in retirement.

“Advisers and their clients are finding ways to stay prepared as global conflicts and economic pressures remain elevated,” Jacquinot said in the statement. “Rather than pulling back from markets, advisers are building resilience into portfolios through diversification and downside protection while continuing to guide clients toward their long-term goals.”

Formal Plans More Common Among RIAs

The study also highlighted differences in adviser approaches to formal retirement planning. Overall, 42% of those surveyed said they prepared a written retirement plan for at least three-quarters of their clients entering retirement. That share rose to more than half among RIAs, compared with just 34% of non-RIAs.

Despite this gap, advisers were more aligned when it came to generating retirement income. About half said they most often used a bucket strategy: dividing client assets into time-based segments to meet income needs. The next-most-common approach, cited by 30%, was a total return strategy, which focuses on generating returns to fund expenses from a single pool of assets.

About one-quarter (26%) of those surveyed said that factoring health care and long-term-care costs into retirement planning were their biggest challenges. RIAs reported this slightly less often (23%) than non-RIAs (29%).

Not surprisingly, clients were most concerned about these same costs. About half of surveyed advisers said they were talking about health care costs more than they were six months ago, and that trend was consistent across RIAs and non-RIAs.

For long-term care, however, there was a notable gap: Only 29% of RIAs said they were discussing the topic more, compared with nearly half (46%) of non-RIAs.

Security Benefit is a Kansas-based insurance company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Eldridge Industries LLC. Along with Everly Life, it forms the core of Eldridge Wealth Solutions.