What’s your retirement income style?
Retirement planning isn’t one-size-fits-all. The right income plan is the one you can live with in year eight, when markets are down and the headlines are loud. Your style tells us what that looks like for you.
Why one rule doesn’t fit everyone
For decades, a lot of retirement advice has treated income planning as one general rule for everyone: hold a stock-and-bond portfolio, and withdraw a set percentage each year. That approach can work well for some people. For others, it creates real anxiety, and anxiety tends to lead to the wrong decision at the wrong time, like selling after a drop instead of before it.
Retirement advice often assumes there is one right way to turn savings into income. People differ. Some want a paycheck they can count on. Some want their money working for them. Some want both, in separate pieces. A plan that doesn’t fit your temperament may be harder to stick with when markets are difficult.
What RISA® is
RISA® stands for Retirement Income Style Awareness. It was developed by Dr. Wade Pfau and Dr. Alex Murguía of Retirement Researcher. It takes about fifteen minutes.
It doesn’t rank you against other people. It asks how you feel about a handful of retirement trade-offs and shows you where you land.
Two questions, four styles
Safety or growth?
Do you sleep better with income that is contractually guaranteed, or with the long-term growth potential of the markets?
Commitment or optionality?
Would you rather lock in a plan and stop deciding, or keep flexibility and control?
Your answers place you in one of four styles: Total Return, Time Segmentation, Income Protection, or Risk Wrap. Each has strengths and each has trade-offs. None is better than the others.
What the research shows
- Most people lean toward at least some safety-first, contractually protected income for their essential expenses, rather than relying purely on an investment portfolio.
- Your income style tends to be a fairly stable trait. It doesn’t shift dramatically just because you get older or move into retirement, the way your comfort with risk can.
- A plan that matches your style can make it easier to sit through a downturn instead of selling at the wrong time.
What RISA® does not do
- It does not tell you what to buy.
- It does not predict markets or promise an outcome.
- It does not replace a plan. It is the first input to one.
How we use your style
Once we know your style, we look at what you own, what you need each month, and what could go wrong. Then we talk through which approaches fit you and what each costs you in flexibility, growth or certainty. You decide.
About the RISA® assessment
The Retirement Income Style Awareness® (RISA®) Matrix is a research-backed framework designed to identify your personal psychological preferences for sourcing retirement income. Developed by Dr. Alex Murguía and Dr. Wade Pfau, the assessment evaluates your preferences across two dimensions, Probability-Based vs. Safety-First and Optionality vs. Commitment, to establish a personalized retirement income style. Scott Sullivan, RICP®, CLU® and Bay Point Financial, LLC uses RISA® under an official software licensing agreement with RISA, LLC.
Start with a RISA® assessment
RISA® and Retirement Income Style Awareness® are registered trademarks of RISA, LLC. Scott Sullivan, RICP®, CLU® and Bay Point Financial is a licensed user of the RISA® assessment framework and methodology developed by Dr. Alex Murguía and Dr. Wade Pfau. RISA® scores and profile reports are intended for financial planning education and strategic style identification; they do not constitute a specific recommendation or guarantee of financial performance.