15 Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor About Retirement

Meeting with a financial advisor can be one of the most important conversations you have about your retirement. But knowing what to ask can be difficult.

A good retirement planning conversation should go far beyond asking whether your investments are performing well. Your retirement plan also depends on your spending, taxes, government benefits, pensions, withdrawal strategy, retirement date, longevity, inflation, market risk and many other factors.

The right questions can help you understand not only what your advisor recommends, but why they recommend it.

Whether you are preparing for your first advisor meeting or reviewing an existing retirement plan, these 15 questions can help you have a more productive conversation.

Why Asking the Right Retirement Questions Matters

Retirement planning is different from simply building an investment portfolio. During your working years, the primary objective may be accumulating wealth. During retirement, the problem becomes more complicated.

You need to determine how much income you need, where that income will come from, how long it needs to last, how taxes will affect it and how your investments should support your spending.

A retirement plan also needs to account for uncertainty. You may live longer than expected. Markets may fall shortly after retirement. Inflation may remain elevated. Your spending may change. Government benefits may be different from what you originally expected.

That is why asking an advisor about individual investments is only one part of the conversation.

If you are still building your overall plan, start with How to Create a Financial Freedom Plan .

1. What Assumptions Are You Using in My Retirement Plan?

This is one of the most important questions you can ask.

Every retirement projection depends on assumptions. These may include investment returns, inflation, life expectancy, retirement age, spending, taxes and future income.

Ask your advisor to explain the assumptions behind your plan in plain language.

For example:

• What investment return are you assuming?
• What inflation rate are you using?
• How long are you assuming I will live?
• Are my retirement expenses expected to change?
• What tax rates are being assumed?
• Are government benefits included?

A projection can look very different when these assumptions change.

You can learn more about testing assumptions in Why You Should Test Your Retirement Plan Before You Retire .

2. How Much Retirement Income Do I Actually Need?

Ask your advisor to help you determine your expected retirement spending rather than simply applying a percentage of your current income.

Your spending may change significantly after retirement.

Some expenses may disappear, such as commuting or work-related costs. Others may increase, including travel, hobbies, healthcare or other lifestyle expenses.

Ask:

• How much annual income do I need?
• How much of that income is essential?
• How much is discretionary?
• Will my spending change over time?
• How much income should I plan for during an unexpected expense?

Your income target should be connected to your actual lifestyle rather than an arbitrary rule.

3. How Will Taxes Affect My Retirement Income?

A retirement income number is not particularly useful if you do not know how much of it you will actually keep.

Ask your advisor to show you how taxes affect your retirement income and whether different withdrawal strategies could change your tax bill.

This is particularly important when you have several types of accounts.

Depending on where you live, you may have combinations of taxable investments, tax-deferred accounts and tax-free or tax-advantaged accounts.

Learn more in How Taxes Affect Your Retirement Plan and Financial Freedom .

4. Which Accounts Should I Withdraw From First?

Withdrawal order can have a major effect on taxes and the longevity of your portfolio.

Ask your advisor:

• Which accounts should I draw from first?
• Should I use taxable investments before retirement accounts?
• Should I make withdrawals from tax-deferred accounts earlier?
• Should I convert or withdraw money strategically during lower-income years?
• How should tax-free accounts fit into my strategy?

The best withdrawal strategy is not necessarily the one that simply produces the lowest tax bill in the current year. The objective is to consider the entire retirement period.

See How to Create a Tax-Efficient Retirement Income Plan for more information.

5. When Should I Claim Government Retirement Benefits?

Government benefits can form a substantial part of retirement income.

Depending on your country, this may include programs such as Social Security in the United States or CPP and OAS in Canada.

Ask your advisor to compare different claiming dates rather than assuming there is one universally correct age.

Ask:

• When should I begin my benefits?
• What happens if I delay them?
• How does my spouse's benefit interact with mine?
• How will benefits affect my investment withdrawals?
• How will taxes affect the benefits I receive?

Government benefits should be considered as part of the entire retirement income plan rather than treated as a separate calculation.

Read CPP, OAS and Social Security: How Government Benefits Affect Retirement Planning for a broader look at this issue.

6. How Long Does My Money Need to Last?

Retirement planning requires an assumption about longevity, but nobody knows the exact date they will die.

Ask your advisor what life expectancy is being used and whether the plan has been tested beyond that age.

A plan that works if you live to 85 may look very different if you live to 95 or 100.

Ask your advisor:

• What happens if I live significantly longer than expected?
• How much additional money would I need?
• Does the plan account for increasing healthcare or care costs?
• What happens to my spouse if I die first?

Longevity risk is one reason it is useful to test a retirement plan against different lifespans.

See What If I Live to 100? How to Plan for Longevity Risk .

7. What Happens If the Stock Market Crashes Shortly After I Retire?

This is an especially important question for someone approaching retirement.

A large market decline early in retirement can be more damaging than the same decline later because withdrawals may force you to sell investments while prices are depressed.

Ask your advisor to demonstrate what your plan would look like after a significant market decline.

You may also want to ask:

• How much could my portfolio fall?
• How would my income be affected?
• Would I need to reduce spending?
• Would I need to sell investments during the downturn?
• Do I have other sources of income?
• How would the plan recover?

Read What Happens If the Stock Market Crashes After I Retire? to explore this scenario further.

8. What Is My Sustainable Withdrawal Rate?

Ask your advisor how much you can reasonably withdraw from your portfolio each year and what assumptions support that recommendation.

You may have heard of the 4% rule, but a fixed withdrawal percentage is not necessarily appropriate for every person.

Your sustainable withdrawal rate can depend on:

• Retirement age
• Portfolio size
• Asset allocation
• Expected returns
• Inflation
• Taxes
• Other sources of income
• How flexible your spending is
• How long your retirement may last

For more perspective, read The NEW 4% Rule .

9. How Would You Change My Investment Strategy as I Get Older?

Your investment strategy should not necessarily remain unchanged throughout retirement.

Ask your advisor how your portfolio is expected to change as you move from accumulation into retirement and eventually through later life.

You can ask:

• What is my current asset allocation?
• What level of risk am I taking?
• How might that allocation change?
• How much volatility should I expect?
• How much cash or safer assets should I hold?
• How does my portfolio support my expected withdrawals?

The objective is not necessarily to eliminate investment risk. It is to make sure the amount of risk you take makes sense for your overall retirement plan.

10. What Happens If My Retirement Date Changes?

Your retirement date is one of the most powerful variables in your financial plan.

Retiring two or three years earlier can mean fewer years of saving, more years of withdrawals and potentially less employment income.

On the other hand, working longer can allow additional savings to accumulate while reducing the number of years your portfolio needs to support you.

Ask your advisor to compare several retirement dates.

If you are considering early retirement, also read Can I Retire Early? How to Know If You Can Afford Early Retirement .

11. Have You Tested My Plan Under Poor Market Conditions?

A retirement plan should not be judged only by what happens in an average scenario.

Ask your advisor to show you what happens when several unfavorable events occur together.

For example:

• Markets fall significantly.
• Inflation remains elevated.
• You retire earlier than expected.
• You live longer than expected.
• Your spending is higher than planned.
• Investment returns are lower than expected.

This is the idea behind stress-testing a retirement plan.

Learn more in How to Stress-Test Your Retirement Plan .

12. Do You Use Monte Carlo Analysis?

Monte Carlo analysis can be useful for illustrating how a retirement plan might perform under many different combinations of investment returns and other variables.

Instead of relying on one projected investment-return sequence, a Monte Carlo simulation can test numerous possible outcomes.

If your advisor uses Monte Carlo analysis, ask:

• What does the success percentage actually mean?
• What assumptions are being used?
• What happens in the unsuccessful scenarios?
• How sensitive is the result to investment returns?
• What changes would improve the result?

A Monte Carlo percentage should not be treated as a guarantee.

For a deeper explanation, read What Is a Monte Carlo Retirement Simulation? and Monte Carlo Retirement Planning: What Does a 90% Success Rate Mean? .

13. What Could Cause My Retirement Plan to Fail?

This may be one of the most revealing questions you can ask.

Instead of asking only whether your plan works, ask your advisor what could make it stop working.

Possible risks might include:

• Higher-than-expected inflation
• Poor investment returns
• Living longer than expected
• Higher retirement spending
• Retiring earlier than planned
• Unexpected taxes
• Changes to income or benefits
• Major healthcare or care expenses
• Large unexpected purchases

Then ask the most important follow-up question: What could I do about each risk?

14. What Should I Change If My Plan Is Not on Track?

A retirement plan is not simply a pass-or-fail test. If your projections are not where you want them to be, there are usually multiple variables that can be changed.

Ask your advisor to show you the effect of different changes.

• What if I save more?
• What if I retire later?
• What if I spend less?
• What if I change my investment allocation?
• What if I delay government benefits?
• What if I change my withdrawal strategy?
• What if I move or reduce housing costs?

Comparing these alternatives turns retirement planning into a decision-making process rather than simply accepting the first projection you receive.

You can also explore the concept of challenging a recommendation in How to Challenge Your Financial Advisor's Retirement Plan .

15. What Would You Do Differently If This Were Your Retirement Plan?

This is a simple but useful question.

Once your advisor has reviewed your complete situation, ask what they believe deserves the most attention.

You can ask:

• What is the biggest weakness in my current plan?
• What is the biggest opportunity?
• Which assumption concerns you most?
• What would you change first?
• What should I avoid doing?
• What should I review every year?

The answer can reveal how your advisor thinks about your retirement beyond simply selecting investments.

Questions About Your Advisor Matter Too

The questions above focus on your retirement plan, but you should also understand the person helping you create it.

Consider asking:

• How are you compensated?
• What services are included in your fees?
• How often will we meet?
• How do you build retirement income plans?
• How do you handle tax planning?
• How do you evaluate withdrawal strategies?
• How do you handle major changes in a client's situation?
• What happens if I disagree with your recommendation?

You are not only evaluating a portfolio. You are evaluating a professional relationship that could continue for many years.

Bring Your Own Retirement Plan to the Conversation

You do not have to walk into an advisor's office without knowing anything about your own finances.

In fact, arriving with a basic retirement plan can make the conversation much more productive.

Even an imperfect plan can help you communicate:

• When you would like to retire
• How much you expect to spend
• What assets you have
• What income you expect
• What benefits you may receive
• What concerns you most
• What retirement scenarios you are considering

For more on preparing for that conversation, read How to Prepare for Your First Meeting With a Financial Advisor .

You may also want to read Should You Bring Your Retirement Plan to a Financial Advisor? .

Use Retirement Planning Software Before Your Meeting

Retirement planning software can help you organize your financial information and explore scenarios before meeting with an advisor.

This does not mean you need to create a perfect financial plan on your own. Instead, the goal is to understand your starting point and identify the questions you want professional help answering.

Retirementize is designed for exactly this kind of planning process.

You can build a retirement plan using your savings, investments, pensions, government benefits, spending, taxes and other important financial information. You can then test different retirement ages, income levels, investment outcomes and other scenarios.

That gives you something much more useful than a list of account balances: a model of how your financial life could work together.

You can then bring that plan and your questions to a financial advisor and ask them to review the assumptions, identify risks and suggest improvements.

This creates a powerful workflow:

PLAN. IMPROVE. TEST. CONFIRM. REPEAT.

The software helps you explore the possibilities. Your advisor can provide professional judgment and help determine what actions make sense for your circumstances.

Learn more about combining the two approaches in Financial Advisor vs Retirement Planning Software: Which Do You Need? .

Questions Are More Valuable Than Predictions

One of the biggest benefits of asking good retirement planning questions is that they shift the conversation away from trying to predict the future.

Nobody knows exactly what investment returns, inflation, taxes or government policies will look like decades from now.

A strong retirement plan therefore should not depend on one perfect prediction. It should be able to adapt when reality differs from expectations.

Instead of asking only: "Will I have enough money?"

Ask: "What happens if my assumptions are wrong?"

That question can lead to a much more useful retirement conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most important question to ask a financial advisor about retirement?

One of the most important questions is: "What assumptions are you using in my retirement plan?" Understanding the assumptions behind a recommendation allows you to evaluate how sensitive your plan is to changes in returns, inflation, spending, taxes and longevity.

What should I ask a financial advisor before retiring?

Ask about your retirement income, taxes, investment strategy, withdrawal strategy, government benefits, longevity, market risk, retirement date and what happens if your assumptions are wrong.

Should I ask my financial advisor about taxes?

Yes. Taxes can have a significant effect on retirement income and portfolio longevity. Ask how different withdrawal strategies, account types and benefit decisions could affect your tax situation.

Should I ask my advisor about a market crash?

Absolutely. Ask what would happen if the market fell significantly shortly before or after retirement and whether you would need to change your spending or withdrawals.

Should I bring my own retirement plan to a financial advisor?

Bringing a basic retirement plan can make the conversation more productive. It gives you and your advisor a starting point for discussing your goals, assumptions and potential risks.

Can retirement planning software replace a financial advisor?

Retirement planning software and financial advisors serve different purposes. Software can help organize information, calculate projections and test scenarios. An advisor can provide professional judgment, personalized recommendations and implementation guidance. For many people, using both can be valuable.

Fun Facts

Conclusion

A meeting with a financial advisor should be a conversation, not a presentation where you simply receive a recommendation.

Asking the right questions can help you understand how your retirement plan works, what assumptions it depends on and where the biggest risks may be.

Ask about your retirement income. Ask about taxes. Ask about government benefits. Ask about withdrawals. Ask about longevity. Ask what happens during a market crash. Ask what happens if you retire earlier, spend more or earn less than expected.

Most importantly, ask your advisor what you can change if the plan does not produce the outcome you want.

Retirement planning is not about predicting exactly what will happen. It is about understanding your options and building a plan that can adapt.

A strong process is: PLAN. IMPROVE. TEST. CONFIRM. REPEAT.

Retirementize can help you build that starting plan, explore different scenarios and arrive at your advisor meeting with better information and better questions.

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