New White Paper Declares Retirement Planning "Broken," Calls on Advisors to Expand the Scope with Longevity Planning

bQuest research argues the industry's core question, "will the money last?" is the wrong one for a generation living decades longer and outlines a new planning model built around longevity and care coordination

DENVER, Aug. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- bQuest, the award-winning aging-care intelligence platform built to help financial advisors guide clients through some of life's most complex and emotional moments, today released a new white paper arguing that the retirement planning model most advisors still rely on is fundamentally outdated, and that the industry's focus on a single question, "Will the client run out of money?", has left millions of retirees both under-living and under-prepared.

The white paper, "Retirement Planning Is Broken: Why Longer Lives Require the Next Evolution of Financial Advice," contends that conventional retirement planning creates two significant blind spots. The first is that it leaves retirees so uncertain about spending that many chronically under-consume the wealth they spent decades building; and the second is that it fails to plan for healthcare and long-term care costs that are episodic, unpredictable, and potentially catastrophic, which are the very costs most likely to derail a financial plan.

The timing is not incidental. By 2030, every member of the Baby Boomer generation, roughly 73 million Americans, will be 65 or older, and one in five Americans will be of retirement age. bQuest argues that the financial advisory profession, which has spent decades perfecting how clients accumulate and preserve wealth, is unprepared to help that same generation actually use it.

"Conventional retirement planning wasn't built to fail, it was built for a shorter, simpler version of later life than the one most people are actually going to live," said Lauren Clough, CEO at bQuest. "Advisors can run a probability-of-success calculation all day long, but a 90 percent chance of not running out of money doesn't give the client the confidence and permission to live the life they desire and gift to family, especially in their later years and a real opportunity for those firms that choose to."

The paper draws on interviews with three practitioners at the intersection of financial planning and aging:

• Russ Hill, former CEO of Halbert Hargrove and author of Optimizing Longevity, who identifies what he calls the "consumption paradox," which is retirees end up with more money at death than at retirement not by design, but because fear of running out kept them from spending.
• Tom West, a long-term care planning specialist at SEIA and author of Age Against the Machine, who has documented cases of ultra-affluent families with fragmented care, including one $25 million household, when asked who had the full picture of the client's care plan, no one in the room could answer.
• Frank McAleer, who built longevity resource networks for advisors at Raymond James and now Key Financial, Inc., found that advisors offering coordinated care resources saw client engagement rates of 20 to 25 percent, based on what he calls a "return on empathy."

The white paper proposes Longevity Planning as the next stage in the evolution of financial advice, following the historical progression from Investment Planning to Financial Planning to Estate and Tax Planning. Rather than asking only whether the money will last, Longevity Planning asks what will need to change in a client's resources and support system to sustain the full arc of a longer life, treating care needs, housing, cognitive risk, family readiness, and legacy as planning variables rather than external surprises.

The paper pairs this proactive planning layer with Care Coordination, just-in-time support that activates when a diagnosis arrives, a parent is hospitalized, or a family faces a sudden caregiving decision. bQuest's Care Intelligence Platform is built to deliver both, giving advisory firms turnkey infrastructure to help clients prepare for the realities of aging and to connect them with trusted specialists when a crisis hits, without turning the advisor into a care coordinator themselves.

"Every evolution in this profession happened because client needs outgrew the existing model," said Clough. "That's exactly where we are with longevity. Firms that treat care and aging as someone else's problem are going to watch the next generation of wealth walk out the door. Firms that build this into the advisor relationship are going to define what comprehensive planning means for the next 30 years."

The full white paper, including the underlying research from the Stanford Center on Longevity's New Map of Life initiative and commentary from Age Wave founder Ken Dychtwald, is available for download here:  https://thebquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/bQuest-White-Paper-Retirement-Planning-Is-Broken.pdf

About bQuest

bQuest is a technology-driven aging care and end-of-life planning intelligence platform built exclusively for financial advisors. Designed to integrate seamlessly into advisor workflows, bQuest enables advisors to support clients and families through critical life transitions, from aging in place and caregiving, to hospice and estate matters, without sacrificing efficiency or focus. bQuest combines a curated provider network, digital access, and marketing tools to help advisors grow trust, deliver holistic service, and strengthen client loyalty across generations. Learn more at www.thebquest.com.

SOURCE bQuest