Planner: Conduct productive retirement meetings

Here’s a timeline for the sequence of retirement meetings. Try it with your clients.

1. Pre-retirement:

Prepare the client for how to handle an offer from an employer pension plan, or the sale of a business. Ask your client to request a second copy of the offer from his or her employer for you to review.

Request the employer’s pension plan manager calculate retirement income from the pension assuming three retirement dates, based around an early, middle and delayed retirement.

Check that your client has applied to receive OAS and CPP. OAS can take six months to calculate, so give yourself enough time.

Walk your client through which sources will provide the initial retirement income, how it will be delivered to them and what statements to expect in the first months.

2. RRIF:

The transition from RRSPs to RRIFs by age 71 can be confusing.

As soon as clients indicate they plan to retire, take them through their withdrawal options and outline what impact it will have on their portfolios. It may be best for clients to withdraw from their RRSPs soon after retirement, when they may be in a lower tax bracket, than at age 71.

There are also opportunities to split the RRIF income with a spouse, and this may influence when a client begins the RRIF transition.

During the year they transition to a RRIF, plan a meeting in the first quarter of the year to review the transition.

3. Post-retirement:

Plan a conversation a few months after they have retired and have received their first statements.

Make sure clients understand the statements and that the income is being deposited correctly.

Invite them to ask questions.