26 Jun 2025

Ask the expert: How do we empower clients to find happiness in retirement?

Nicola Crosbie is a Chartered Financial Planner and founder of Moran Wealth Management. As a highly respected adviser, she’s dedicated her life’s work to making sure people are as informed as possible about their financial futures. As part of our Happiness in Retirement campaign, we sat down to discuss her views on later life planning and the impact solid advice and solutions can have on client wellbeing… 

ask the expert

You’ve described your role as empowering clients and being a financial coach. Can you tell us your approach to client relationships?  
 
For me, it's very much the person at the centre of everything. Our job is getting to know people. At the start of our relationship, you often spend quite a lot of time on that. It’s not an immediate fix. You’re trying to understand what motivates them and what their goals are. It's much more than just about money.  
 
If a client comes to you for the first time with retirement planning in mind, what concerns do they typically have, and how do you approach that initial conversation? 
 
Retirement planning can feel scary. It's not just about having enough money. It's often about having the peace of mind and the ability to retire. A common worry is being a poor pensioner. Many want to live their life, same as they are now.  
 
Most people in their 40s and 50s don’t know what retirement looks like yet. So, there’s this kind of coaching element too. There are also clients who know somebody that’s died very quickly into retirement and think “we won’t live that long anyway”. Sometimes you have to say, “that might not necessarily happen to you, have you thought about if you did live a long time?”. So, you're playing devil's advocate. Putting thoughts into their head, so they go away and digest it. The conversations then become deeper and richer as time goes on. 
 
What are the some of the common life goals for those approaching, or in, retirement? 
 
Some people want to travel more, move abroad or get a camper van. Others are very fixated on leaving money to their next generation. But most wishes are quite simple. They just want to live relatively well. They want to keep the standard of living they've enjoyed whilst working. So, it’s important to understand their spending habits to know what you're trying to achieve.  
 
Do you have any examples where you’ve helped clients build up their savings in anticipation of retirement? 
 
I get a lot of clients in their late 30s or 40s. They're starting to get a bit more serious about financial planning. Initially, they’re saving for different reasons – so I'm quite a big fan of savings accounts, ISAs and investments without the pension. It gives them more tax wrappers to draw from at different times. It also builds in that you could use annuities for the guaranteed expenses, but you could have the savings for the splurges. 
 
I always say, there isn't any wrong investment. It's good to have different things. It's good to have properties, if that's what interests you. Variety means you've got different sources of funds to draw on at different times.  
 
Recently, our research found that 61% of retirees are taking phased retirements, with 24% cutting their hours and 21% going part time. Are you seeing an increasing number of clients taking this approach? 
 
Phasing into retirement is a bigger one nowadays. There are two reasons. People are living much longer, with state pensions much further away. They can't see themselves working full time to 68. But maybe could do two or three days, as a natural kind of wind down. Also, more people care for grandchildren and older parents. Sometimes, people like to go part time for that reason, and maybe just need to supplement income.  
 
The other thing is flexibility of pensions – having the ability to access the 25% and not the income. People are starting to do that for reasons such as rising mortgage rates, capital expenses, or, simply, just to enjoy life. They’ve maybe lost people and reassessed their work life balance. They want to do things, and they want to spend money. It can be quite an attractive way to mentally phase yourself into retirement. So, you've reduced your responsibility. I can really see that becoming more common as time goes on.  
 
Our research also explored the connection between financial security and wellbeing in retirement, and the link between guaranteed income and happiness. What’s your experience been? 
 
Clients just don't want to have to worry about money in retirement. If you can take away the financial worry, it won't take away all their worries. But it will certainly take away some of the pain. For example, if there's a bereavement, we can't take back what's happened, but we can solve the problem of running out money. I think sometimes that hybrid approach, part annuity, part flexibility, is a great solution to be in because we don't have things like defined benefit schemes quite so much anymore, which was another solution for that sort of problem. So, yeah, I think if they can sleep at night sleep easy knowing that basic bills are covered, then it does give a sense of happiness and freedom. 
 
In your experience, does financial advice impact happiness? We’ve found that people receiving financial advice are far more likely to be happy in retirement. But there's still a lot of people who aren’t seeking advice and therefore are unprepared when it comes to retirement. 
 
The value of financial advice goes beyond monetary returns. It's having somebody that you can trust and rely on to advise you properly. The majority of people don't want financial jargon. They want simple terms and for you to understand the technical side and find the best tax efficient solution for them, or for securing guaranteed income. You're doing what you think is best for them. They're looking for that reassurance of using an expert. So, yeah, I advocate it for everyone. It should be open to more people.  
 
It's actually priceless, if you look at it like that. But trust is still a problem in our profession. So that's where there’s sometimes an issue of misconception and mistrust that we need to overcome more. 
 
Despite the wellbeing benefits, many retirees continue to overlook the annuities as a valuable financial tool. Have you seen a shift in client demand for a guaranteed income? 
 
I think they're not told about them enough. Annuities have had such poor reputation over the years. And I think we need to open ourselves up to them. It's a tool that can play an important part for health issues or anything that could happen. And, there’s many people that annuities are well suited to, like the risk averse. 
 
I still know advisers that don't do any annuities. You should know how to do them when you come across them, or you should know who to refer them on to. The problem lies more with us talking about it more. I think the main misconception with annuities is that it's a final decision. But it doesn't need to be. It can be used as part of a combined approach. 

 

If you’d like to find out more about our research on what truly makes a happy retirement, visit Happiness is | Annuities | Legal & General