Decumulation is key, says professor

The financial planning world has been focusing too heavily on the act of accumulating assets, according to an academic speaking at the InvestmentNews Retirement Summit in New York this afternoon.

“The problem is that all of the research is focusing on the accumulation phase and not enough research is done on the decumulation phase,” said Shlomo Benartzi, associate professor and co-chair of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles.

If an Americans lives to the age of 65, he or she could die anywhere between ages of 69 and 94, placing advisers into a quandary as to how long they should prepare their clients for retirement.

Professor Benartzi suggested that Americans should moderate their portfolios to achieve a balance between annuities and other investments in order to better handle retirement risk.

“People underestimating longevity isn’t the key,” he said.

“There are so many products that people in the industry can get confused.”