inStream’s Safe Savings Rate Plan solves the most fundamental question for most clients – how much do I need to save? For younger clients, this is the factor that determines if they will meet their goals. If they save enough, a lot of problems simply go away, but if they don’t save enough, the money simply is not there. Aside from helping clients focus on what they can actually control, the Safe Savings Rate plan is designed to help advisors contextualize planning for their clients, and incorporate the dynamic nature of distributions.
Focus On What You Can Control
One of the common refrains in the passive investment community is to focus on the things that you can control. The same principle applies to planning (and pretty much everything else). There are a number of things that you and your client can control: asset allocation, tax planning, distribution strategy, but the big one is savings rate. If the client saves enough, they will be ok, and if they don’t save enough, they won’t. It’s pretty simple. The trick is identifying what “enough” actually means. The Safe Savings Rate plan solves this. The plan will tell you, in very simple terms, how much needs to be saved to accomplish whatever the client wants to accomplish. By varying the level of certainty, you can show the client what different savings levels mean, and then make an informed decision about how to move forward.
Safe Savings Rate Plans Contextualize Financial Planning
Most clients do not understand monte carlo analysis. I don’t think that there are too many advisors who will disagree with that statement. What that means is that, in a lot of cases, going to a client and saying that you have an 84% probability of success creates as many questions as it answers. Is 84% a good probability of success? What does that actually mean? With the Safe Savings Rate plan, you don’t need to worry about translating for a client. The plan simply tells you how much the client will need to save every year to do what they want to do. In other words, instead of telling a client that they have a 84% probability of success, you can tell a client that they need to save 15% of their income. Clients understand what 15% of their income is. You don’t need to have the conversation about exactly what monte carlo analysis is, and what the numbers mean. The fewer of those types of conversations you need to have, the happier everyone is going to be.
Clients Aren’t Machines
Just like income, client’s distributions and spending needs (and desires) change through time. With most plans, you can ask me how much a client will be spending in 30 years, and I can sit down, do a little math, and tell you what the exact amount will be. We all know that it doesn’t work like that. Distributions move. They go up, they go down, and a lot of those moves are based on rules of thumb. Now those rules of thumb are a good thing, but we need to understand what tradeoffs we are making. Through inStream’s system of distribution rules, these different rules of thumb can be included and the effects brought into the plan. For more information on the specific rules, you can see our support site. Those tradeoffs can be a good thing if they help keep the client in their seat, but we need to understand what they mean for the client today.
inStream’s Safe Savings rate helps you determine how much your client will need to save. For younger clients, to a certain extent, this is the financial planning process. The Safe Savings Rate plan makes that easy. And by tracking your client’s plans, you can continuously monitor your client’s situation, and proactively identify when they are off track.
If you want to see the Safe Savings Rate in practice, sign up for a trial of inStream.
Comments