Professionals today in the Retirement Industry operate in a market characterized by seismic change and turmoil. With global stock markets almost back to pre-recession levels and moderately re-surgent developed-market economies (albeit through life-support stimuli from central banks and treasury departments), some Retirement Industry professionals may think their cheese has come back to where it was pre-2007.
In a recent Retirement Intelligence Report, Campbell Edlund and I make a case that someone has indeed moved the industry’s cheese…and it’s not coming back. Job insecurity (blue and white collar) driven by accelerated global competition(e.g. India, China, Brazil, South Korea, Singapore) and Americans’ un-sustainably poor savings behavior, have collided with long-term trends in rising dependency ratios (ratio of working to non-working population) and longevity, and the gradual decline of the defined benefit system that ensures continued income for many households when their work activity declines and eventually stops (retirement).
These macro-trends are now magnified and perhaps hard-coded in the consumer’s and the advisor’s psyche by the recent Great Recession. The current financial crisis is un- precedented and represents a traumatic experience for the baby boom generation. And after exposure to this and the dot-com bust, many financial advisors and consumers who survived the last ten years may have a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder – a state that will influence future advisor behavior with clients and the behavior of their clients. And this is the key point. The dynamics of the market that financial advisors serve – the end-consumer – have changed. Some of these changes are emotional in nature, and some mirror long-term demographic trends that create “tipping points”. But make no mistake – we do not believe these changes are cyclical in nature.
To defend and grow market share in the future, manufacturers of insurance, investment and retirement products must align their product and marketing strategies with the changes their distribution and intermediary channel are witnessing from the end-consumer. The good news: advisors, Plan Sponsors, and consumers want your help in demystifying the path foward. They want a trusted source that can solve what is in most cases a retirement income problem.
For more on marketing best practices for adapting to these changes and capturing your share of this $5 Trillion opportunity, send me an email at dehrenthal@emiboston.com and request a copy of our just published Intelligence Report on helping retirement professionals capture $5 trillion in motion.
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