Career as a Retirement Planner – What Does It Entail?

Retirement planning is part of and probably is one of the most important components of personal financial planning. With an aging population, financial planners who specialises in retirement planning or in short, retirement planners are expected to be in strong demand now and into the future.

But, what exactly does a retirement planner do and is it a worthwhile career to consider?

To understand the role of a retirement planner, you will need to first understand what financial planning is.

What is financial planning?

Financial planning is the process of creating an implementable financial plan and a good definition is from Investopedia which defines a financial plan as “A document containing a person’s current money situation and long-term monetary goals, as well as strategies to achieve those goals.”

Specifically, using the Certified Financial Planner program as a reference, financial planning includes the following planning modules:

• Foundations in Financial Planning
• Risk Management and Insurance Planning
• Tax Planning and Estate Planning
• Investment Planning
• Retirement Planning
• Financial Plan Construction and Professional Responsibilities

While financial planning is generic in nature (i.e. everything that involves money can be part of financial planning), there are specific planning areas that requires professional expertise and this is where financial planning help is needed.

In GEN, we define financial planning simply as being organised for life’s major events. And, a retirement planner specialises in the major life event of retirement.

Career as a Retirement Planner

A retirement planner helps a client be adequately prepared for retirement and it includes planning for essential “needs” such as income, medical, long term care as well as “wants” such as charitable giving and legacy planning.

Thus, to be a competent retirement planner, you need to first be fully qualified and licensed as a financial planner and in addition, have specialised knowledge on schemes and financial solutions specific to retirement such as CPF, private annuities and various types of insurance that clients may need for retirement.

Above all, retirement planning is “people work” where service, empathy and patience are critical to help clients set up, implement and maintain a successful retirement plan. Interest in finance is important but interest in the well being of clients is non-negotiable.

Interesting Note: Retirement planning is not exclusive for people who are close to retirement age. Many of our best retirement planning clients are in their 20s. In fact, for retirement planning, the earlier you start, the better is.

Explore with GEN

Starting a career as a Retirement Planner is probably something that is very new to you and there are many questions to ask and many things to learn before you can decide if this is the right opportunity for you.

To get started, you can download this “FAQ on Being A Retirement Planner With GEN” that has a list of commonly asked questions to get you started.