A financial advisor manages investments in most practices and offers retirement planning as one of several services. A retirement income planner specializes in the distribution phase: withdrawal sequencing, Roth conversion timing, Social Security claiming, and Medicare premium management. Many advisors list retirement income planning as a top service without deep specialization in it.
What does a financial advisor do day to day?
A generalist advisor builds and manages a portfolio in most practices, rebalances it, and checks in from time to time on broader goals: college funding, insurance needs, a rough retirement number. Retirement planning is part of the job, one line item among several more often than not, rather than the primary skill the practice was built around. For someone still 15 or 20 years from retirement, that breadth fits the need well.
What does a retirement income planner focus on instead?
A retirement income planner treats the distribution phase as the entire job, not a line item. The work centers on sequencing withdrawals across taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts, timing Roth conversions in the window before RMDs begin, coordinating Social Security claiming between spouses, and managing MAGI to avoid IRMAA surcharges. None of these decisions moves in isolation from the others, which is the reason the specialty exists as its own discipline instead of a feature added to a generalist practice.
Why do advisors who offer retirement income planning vary so much in depth?
The American College of Financial Services’ 2026 Advisor Expertise Study found that 66% of advisors list retirement income planning among their top three services, yet nearly 6 in 10 of those same advisors show only basic or intermediate proficiency in it. The service gets offered far more often than it gets mastered. If you already have an advisor who says retirement income planning is covered, that claim is worth testing against actual work product, not just the answer you get when you ask.
How do the two compare?
| Financial advisor (generalist) | Retirement income planner | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Investment management and broad financial planning | Withdrawal sequencing, Roth timing, Social Security, and Medicare coordination |
| Where the value concentrates | The accumulation years, building and managing a portfolio | The years just before and after retirement |
| Investment management | Handled by the advisor in most practices | Varies by firm; some coordinate with a separate portfolio manager instead |
| Retirement income depth | Uneven, per the 2026 Advisor Expertise Study | Built as the core specialty rather than an add-on |
| Best fit | Someone who wants one relationship covering both investing and planning | Someone who already has an advisor or CPA and needs the distribution-phase decisions coordinated |
None of these rows crowns a winner. They describe two different jobs that happen to share a job title in casual conversation.
What are the honest trade-offs?
A specialist adds a second professional relationship to manage, on top of the CPA and portfolio manager you may already have, and coordination between three people takes more effort than a single point of contact. A retirement income planner who does not manage investments in-house still leaves you needing someone for that piece, and paying for specialist depth may not be worth it if your income and tax picture is simple. On the other side, a generalist advisor juggling retirement planning alongside investment management, insurance, and general goals has less room to go deep on any one of them, which is the gap the Advisor Expertise Study data points to. Neither model is wrong. The right one depends on how complex your income and tax picture already is.
How does Robert’s practice work?
Robert Boeck works the distribution side of the business, described in full on the services page. He does not manage investments himself; a team member handles that piece. Engagements are built to work alongside a client’s existing CPA and portfolio manager, adding the withdrawal sequencing, Roth conversion, and Social Security coordination most generalist relationships were never built to cover, rather than replacing the relationships already in place.
What should you do next?
Ask your current advisor to show you a written, multi-year Roth conversion schedule and a Social Security claiming analysis for both spouses, not a description of one. Compare what you get back to the depth described here. If the answer is thin, a specialist conversation is worth having alongside the relationship you already have, not instead of it.
Schedule a consultation to see what a distribution-focused second opinion looks like for your numbers.
Common questions
- Do you need to replace your financial advisor to work with a retirement income planner?
- In most engagements, no. A retirement income planner coordinates with your existing CPA and portfolio manager in most cases, rather than replacing either one, adding the distribution-phase piece that was missing.
- Is a retirement income planner more expensive than a financial advisor?
- It depends on the firm and the fee structure, which vary enough that a general answer would mislead you. Ask any firm how they charge before assuming either model costs more.
- Does a retirement income planner manage my investments?
- It depends on the practice. Some do. Others coordinate with a separate portfolio manager, in-house or at your existing firm, and focus on the tax and income side alone. Ask how a specific firm is structured before assuming.
- How do I know if my current advisor has real retirement income depth?
- Ask for a written multi-year Roth conversion projection and a Social Security claiming analysis for both spouses. A real answer looks like a document you can review, not a verbal reassurance that it is handled.
If the decisions on this page are ahead of you, the two of you can work through them with Robert Boeck before any of them becomes permanent.
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