Industry Updates

Cerulli: Households with $100k-$500k in investable assets are sweet spot for asset managers

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

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Opalesque Industry Update - According to The Cerulli Edge-Retirement Edition, 3Q Issue, most households with between $100,000 and $500,000 in household investable assets for retirement have not developed a formal retirement income plan or engaged with a financial advisor.

"This finding is a significant concern because that means some investors are entering retirement without an income plan for the next 20 plus years of their lives. In addition, we found that many retirees in the $100,000 to $500,000 asset range are not working with a financial advisor," explains Tom Modestino, associate director at Cerulli Associates.

"The silver lining is that this represents a great opportunity for asset managers, broker/dealers, and retirement plan providers to increase retirement income planning education, guidance many investors will welcome. This lack of planning can result in rollover opportunities after retirement," notes Alessandra Hobler, analyst at Cerulli.

Interestingly, Cerulli points out that the few investors who are working with a financial advisor were not likely to move or switch their assets to another advisor.

Of those households with less than $500,000 in investable assets, concerns are more strongly centered on cash flow. Asset managers may develop relationships with these households by offering budgeting tools and educational information on Social Security.p> Cerulli also found that investors with between $500,000 and $2 million in investable assets were more prepared for retirement and many were working with an advisor. And, investors who fell within this income range were found to be more likely to switch assets to another advisor. This is likely due to the fact that once these investors enter retirement, they look for an advisor with strong, established retirement income planning services.

"Preparing for retirement can be a difficult task. Investors spend most of their lives saving and accumulating assets in order to generate future retirement income," Hobler points out.

Other findings:

Although pre-retirees should be a primary target for advisors hoping to provide retirement income planning, more than half of retired investors do nothing in advance of retirement.

While investors in their fifties are likely to report that they have not gotten around to consulting an advisor, investors in their sixties are likely to say they do not need retirement advice. Therefore, the sweet spot for asset managers to target with the message of retirement income is investors in their late fifties.

Though relationships between providers and investors are formed through the retirement asset accumulation stage, for firms that have not had the opportunity to work with investors at this stage there is still the potential to garner rollover assets at the time of retirement.

(press release)

These findings and more are from The Cerulli Edge: Retirement Edition, 3Q 2012 issue: external.cerulli.com/file.sv?00026M

Click here to request a press copy of this research.

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