Whether you work as a financial advisor, certified financial planner, or retirement planning specialist, you might be on the hunt for ways to speed up the retirement planning process for your clients.
In this post, we’ll share a list of questions to ask your clients in a retirement planning questionnaire. These questions can help you gather the information you need to understand your client’s background and develop a strong retirement plan that’s perfectly tailored to their desired lifestyle and financial situation.
We’ll also give you access to our retirement planning questionnaire template that you can use as-is or edit as you please.
What are some questions a financial planner should ask in a retirement planning questionnaire?
Background questions
1. What is your current age?
2. By what age do you intend to retire?
3. At what age do you plan to start claiming social security benefits?
4. Have you started planning for retirement yet? Yes/No
5. If so, which of the following steps have you taken towards retirement:
- Participated in an employer pension program
- Set aside money in a savings account
- Contributed to 401K or equivalent
- Set up a designated retirement account
- Invested in a mutual fund/stocks/bonds
6. Do you have an estimate of the current value of your retirement savings?
7. Besides your retirement savings, what other assets do you have?
- Home
- Vehicles
- Real estate
- Stocks
- Bonds
- Valuable jewelry
- Equipment
- Other
8. Do you have outstanding debts that need to be addressed before retirement? If so, how much?
9. Do you have a will /estate plan in place?
10. Have you designated a power of attorney for your finances, healthcare, or anything else?
11. What are your top 3 concerns or priorities you’d like to address regarding your retirement?
Desired lifestyle questions
1. Can you describe your ideal retirement planning lifestyle?
2. Select which activities you envision filling your time with during retirement:
- Travel
- Moving to a different location (if so, where?)
- Doing charity/community service work
- Starting a business
- Doing part-time work
- Doing casual work
3. Where do you plan to live during your retirement?
- At home, alone
- At home, with family
- In a retirement community
- In a new city
Estimated expenses questions
1. Have you thought about your desired location for retirement and its associated costs?
2. What do you estimate your monthly living expenses to be in terms of:
- Housing
- Groceries
- Healthcare
- Bills
- Other
3. What is your contingency plan for unexpected expenses in retirement?
Healthcare questions
1. How would you rate your current state of your health from 1-10?
2. Do you have any long-term disabilities, diseases, or anything else that is impacting your health? If so, what are they?
3. Do you have health insurance? If so, which provider?
4. How much do you spend on your health insurance per month, or what is your health insurance deductible if covered?
5. Do you have life insurance or long-term care insurance?
Going through the retirement planning process is what allows people to enjoy themselves in their non-working years and make sure they have the income they need to manage their day-to-day expenses and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.
We hope these questions have been helpful in saving you time as you build out your questionnaire.