The Retirement By Design Strategy
Diagnosis first. Always.
A doctor who prescribes before examining you is not practising medicine. The same is true here. Ben does not recommend anything until he understands what you have, what you want, and what your current path actually produces.
Needs analysis and comparison
Understanding what you want, then showing you where you are.
Ben starts with what you want your retirement to look like. Not your risk tolerance on a form, and not a questionnaire that sorts you into a model. What you actually want to do, who you want to look after, and what you are afraid of.
Then he builds the comparison. Your current path, and the alternative, side by side, using your numbers. This is the part almost nobody gets shown, and it is usually the moment the decision makes itself.
Asked why this has to come before everything else, Ben's answer is six words: because he needs to know what to recommend.
Education
You understand it fully, or it does not go ahead.
Guaranteed income tools carry more myths than almost anything in personal finance. Ben walks through the mechanism, what it does, what it costs, what it gives up, and what happens in the situations people worry about most.
If it does not make sense to you at the end of this phase, it does not proceed. That is not a courtesy. A strategy you do not understand is one you will abandon at the worst possible moment.
Implementation
An application and a transfer, usually inside two to six weeks.
The mechanics are straightforward and Ben handles them. An application, a transfer of the portion of your savings being used, and the paperwork that goes with it.
The risk is typically removed within two to six weeks of starting. After decades of exposure, that part tends to happen faster than people expect.
Lifetime support
For as long as you need him.
This is the phase that separates a transaction from a relationship. Ben stays available. Circumstances change, family situations change, and questions come up years later that nobody could have anticipated on day one.
In his words: I will always be available for them until they pass away. He has been doing this 29 years, and a good number of the people he set up early on are still calling.
What the comparison looks like
This is the shape of it. On a Retirement By Design Strategy Session Ben builds this same comparison with your actual numbers in it.
| The 4% rule | Retirement By Design | |
|---|---|---|
| Income source | Market growth you withdraw from | Contractual income paid to you |
| Withdrawal rate | The 4% rule, not guaranteed | 5% or more, guaranteed for life |
| Longevity risk | You carry it | The insurer carries it |
| Legacy | Whatever savings are left over | Funded separately, free of income tax |
These figures are hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only. They are not a prediction or guarantee of your results, which depend on your specific situation and the products selected. Guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing insurer.
What this is not
Ben is not an investment adviser and does not manage investments. He does not tell you what to hold, what to sell, or how to arrange the money you keep in the market.
What he does is the income side. Turning a portion of what you have saved into a paycheck that arrives whatever happens, and structuring the legacy separately so the two stop competing.
Start with the comparison.
It costs nothing, there is nothing to buy on it, and you will leave knowing what your current path produces. Many people find that useful on its own.
Not ready for a call yet? The Retirement Certainty Diagnostic takes about ten minutes and gives you a written picture of where your plan stands, with nothing to buy at the end of it.