Press Release

RISA Releases Retirement Income Research Focused on Individual Retirement Income Preferences

Issued by RISA [Retirement Income Style Awareness]

Oct. 18, 2023

Research issued with BlackRock explores the way style preferences translate to retirement income strategies.

MCLEAN, Va. -- RISA® (Retirement Income Style Awareness), the psychology-backed, research-driven income personality assessment transforming retirement income planning, and BlackRock, one of the world’s leading providers of investment, advisory and risk management solutions, announced the release of a groundbreaking joint research paper, A reimagined approach to finding retirement income: Defining individual styles and solutions using the RISA framework.

Founded by retirement income authorities Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau, the RISA, a 15-minute assessment for individuals actively planning for or engaging with retirement, helps financial advisors understand the ideal way each client would like to source retirement income, thus enabling advisors to define and implement personalized retirement income planning strategies aligned with individual preferences.

RISA and BlackRock collaborated on a research study that sought to identify retirement income style preferences across a representative sample of individuals, with an overweight toward those approaching or at traditional retirement ages, to explore the applicability and relevance of the framework construct within a Defined Contribution (“DC”) plan. Retirement income styles included in the RISA framework are Total Return, Income Protection, Time Segmentation, and Risk Wrap.

“As more and more Americans retire with longer life expectancies and less access to a traditional defined benefit plan, it’s critical for retirees to ensure that their retirement income strategy matches their needs. It was interesting to see the broad appeal of retirement income solutions that combine investments and insurance to address elements of flexibility alongside certainty,” said Anne Ackerley, Head of BlackRock’s Retirement Group.

In their recently published research paper, RISA and BlackRock:

• Illustrate how the RISA framework helps individuals approaching retirement understand their retirement income style preferences
• Explore the way style preferences translate to certain retirement income strategies
• Highlight the instinctive nature of these preferences, with an interesting finding being that these preferences seldom change and remain fairly constant despite different market conditions and levels of retirement knowledge
• Demonstrate the complex nature of solving for the diverse styles of DC participants and underscore the importance of solutions that can be more broadly applicable to retirement income styles

The study revealed that nearly two-thirds of respondents are clustered in styles evoking some combination of Total Return and Income Protection. Additionally, 84% of respondents indicated they would choose a retirement income solution that combined investments and insurance with the additional optionality to choose a lifetime protected income stream at the point of retirement if it was available in their DC plan.

“This research uncovered a powerful opportunity for DC plan fiduciaries to offer solutions that meet the retirement spending preferences of the greatest number of people,” said Pfau.

To access the full RISA and BlackRock research paper, click here.

About RISA

RISA®, the Retirement Income Style Awareness profile, is built on a retirement income framework that blends psychology and financial planning to help investors identify their unique retirement income preferences. Developed by retirement income experts Alex Murguia and Wade Pfau, the intuitive, easy-to-follow survey considers a variety of factors related to an individual's feelings about security, flexibility, reliance on market returns, and preference for contractual guarantees to define their tolerance for income risk during decumulation. The RISA empowers financial advisors with the insights they need to implement the retirement income strategies that make the most sense for each individual client. https://risaprofile.com/

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