Behavioural retirement advice
In this chapter: Conversations with pre-retirees and retirees · Common emotional pitfalls
Retirement transition is psychological as much as financial. Pre-retirees (55-62) often over-save out of anxiety or under-save out of denial. Retirees (60+) often spend too conservatively (fear of running out) or too aggressively (lifestyle inflation). The adviser's role is to anchor decisions in the IPS and the corpus model, not in emotion.
Pre-retiree conversations: stress-test the plan ("can you survive a 30% market correction in year 1?"), define essential vs discretionary expenses, plan health-care provisions (₹50 lakh family floater + critical illness), document succession (will, nominees, letter of wishes). Retiree conversations: the bucket strategy reassurance, regular reviews to adjust withdrawal as needed, transition from accumulation mindset to drawdown mindset (much harder than it sounds), late-life health-care planning, family discussions on legacy.
A practitioner-grade insight: the "phased retirement" model. Many Indian pre-retirees can negotiate part-time consulting or knowledge-economy work after 60, generating 30-50% of pre-retirement income. This dramatically reduces the corpus required and the emotional shock of full retirement. RIAs should explore this with every client — not as a financial fix but as a life-design tool. Many clients, once they realise they can ease into retirement, choose this over a hard stop.