Tuesday 30 September 2025
1:30pm-2:30pm (AEST)
Up to 1 CPD hour available
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Many retirement plans are built around simple life expectancy estimates — often with an arbitrary margin for safety. But in any advised client book, a predictable number of clients will live beyond average life expectancy — and a surprising number will live past 100. So who are these clients? And how can advisers ensure every client receives the right advice in this regard?
The 2024 update of the Australian Life Tables confirms that Australians are continuing to live longer, despite recent global health events. Longevity risk keeps rising.
This session will introduce best-practice techniques, drawing on global leadership such as from the Canadian Institute of Financial Planning and FP Canada Standards Council. You’ll learn how to apply probability based approaches in your advice process — using practical tools to create safer, more appropriate retirement strategies for every client.
As Australia’s Retirement Income Covenant continues to evolve — and superannuation funds do more to help their members maximise income while addressing these type risks — this session will help advisers stay ahead of the curve, and avoid the professional risk of leaving clients exposed to hidden longevity risk in today’s longer-living world.
Learning Outcomes
Jim Hennington
Head of Innovation, Optimum Pensions
Actuary Jim Hennington has been working in retirement planning and financial software for 25 years. He has been involved in the Actuaries Institute submissions on Regulating Digital Product Advice, the Retirement Income Covenant, Retirement Incomes Review, Quality of Advice Review and Innovative Retirement Income Stream (IRIS) Legislative Considerations. He was actively involved in producing the Institute’s guidance notes on Good Practice Principles for Retirement Modelling and Innovative Income Streams. Jim co-authored the papers ‘10 Good Practice Principles for Retirement Modelling’ in 2016, ‘A Framework for Maximising Retirement Income’ in 2021 and ‘We asked how 2,500 planners formulate retirement income advice’ in 2018.
Richard Leckey
General Manager, Optimum Pensions
Richard Leckey is General Manager of Optimum Pensions, which aims to redesign Australia’s retirement system to increase use of lifetime income streams. In a 30+ career as a corporate advisor, he has consulted on over 400 M&A transactions, strategy and corporate finance projects. These projects included strategic reviews for superannuation funds, investment management and for the Government on issue of new debt instruments. Richard led a project to commercialise an innovate retirement income stream in the Australian market and to the formation of Optimum Pensions. This involved a detailed business case and developing partnerships with insurance and reinsurance companies.
David Barrett
Senior Manager Policy & Advocacy, FAAA
David has more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. Currently he is Senior Manager, Policy & Advocacy with the Financial Advice Association Australia, and previously worked at Macquarie Bank for more than 25 years in various roles including Division Director/ Head of Macquarie Technical Advice Services. David has a broad educational background, including qualifications in law, mathematics/computer science, accounting, financial planning, and finance and investment.
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