Allianz Retire Plus has teamed up with Macquarie University to undertake research to provide a better understanding of how pre-retirement advice can facilitate a better life in retirement for most Australians.
Associate Professor Joanne Earl of Macquarie University will lead the three-year project, called Improving Retirement Planning, Decision Making and Adjustment: Towards a Holistic Model of Advice, which will attempt to measure the level of happiness achievable in retirement as a result of receiving holistic advice.
The study will focus on the timing and conditions when people exit the workforce and will take into account the effect of advice covering elements such as the career, finances and health of an individual.
“We think the conditions of exit are a really critical part of the retirement planning decision process. We know that there were 177,500 people who said they were retired in phase one who were back out looking for work in phase two, according to successive waves of the Multipurpose Household survey,” Earl said.
“The primary two reasons for why this was happening was because they were worried about money and they were bored. That says to me the question about timing is not as self-evident as you might think.
“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.”
The new research comes on the back of previous work Earl had performed that examined how health, wealth, social, cognition, emotional and motivational factors played a part in determining a person’s well-being in retirement.
Allianz Retire Plus head of product and customer experience Jacqui Lennon said the project had the potential to reshape the current approach toward retirement advice.
“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,” Lennon said.
