Questions to Ask a Retirement Advisor in Kansas City

The questions that separate advisors are the ones about the plan itself: where each year's income comes from, what happens if markets fall early, what the surviving spouse is left with, who actually holds the money, and who takes over if your advisor does not.

Do the paperwork first

Registration history, disciplinary disclosures, the Form ADV Part 2A brochure and the Form CRS relationship summary are all public or available on request, and they are worth reading before you sit down with anyone. That is a separate job from the one this page covers, and we walk through it in detail in our guide to comparing retirement planning firms in Prairie Village and Overland Park.

Assume you have done that and the firm checks out. What follows is what to ask in the room. These questions are not designed to catch anyone out. They are designed to show you how a firm thinks, because the answers to hard questions are much harder to fake than a description of a process.

Bring documents. Your most recent tax return, your Social Security statement, current account statements and any insurance or annuity contracts you hold. Specific documents produce specific answers. Without them you get general ones, and general answers all sound alike.

How does my money become a paycheck?

This is the question the rest of the plan hangs on. The answer should map your spending to the sources that fund it, year by year: Social Security, any pension, cash reserves, taxable accounts, tax-deferred accounts, Roth accounts and any income contracts you own. If the answer stays at the level of allocation and returns, the firm is describing a portfolio rather than an income plan.

Follow it with: how much can I spend each year, and how did you arrive at that number? The familiar four percent figure is a research finding about historical outcomes, not a plan. What matters is what your own balances can reasonably support after taxes, inflation, the timing of your claiming decision and your capacity to adjust if something changes. Expect a range with conditions attached rather than a single figure.

Then ask which accounts each year's withdrawals come from and why that order. Drawing in a deliberate sequence across taxable, tax-deferred and tax-free accounts is a core part of retirement income planning, and the reasoning should be explainable in plain language.

What happens if markets fall early?

Withdrawals taken from a falling balance in the first years of retirement do lasting damage, because the money sold to fund them is not there to recover. This is sequence-of-returns risk, and it is the single most common way an otherwise reasonable plan breaks.

Ask to see at least three versions of your plan: one with steady returns, one with a long stretch of flat or uneven returns, and one with a substantial decline in the first few years of retirement. A firm that has done this work will have the scenarios ready. Ask what the plan actually does in the bad case. Reducing discretionary spending, drawing from a different account, or deferring a large purchase are real answers. Waiting for a recovery is not a plan.

What do taxes and healthcare do to this?

Ask how tax consequences are estimated across account types, and whether the firm looks at more than one year at a time. Ask about Roth conversions in the years between retiring and the start of required minimum distributions, which are typically a household's lowest-income years and the window where the most is decided.

Then ask about Medicare. Part B and Part D premiums carry income-related surcharges based on modified adjusted gross income from a prior tax year, and the tiers work as thresholds rather than gradual slopes. Income that crosses a line by a small amount raises premiums for a full year. Ask how conversions and withdrawals are sized with those thresholds in view, and how the firm handles the lag between the tax year and the premium year.

Ask what the firm will actually do about taxes, in concrete terms. Projections? Coordination with your CPA? A review of your return? Tax planning and tax preparation are different jobs. Our tax-efficient retirement planning work is done alongside your CPA rather than in place of them, and neither the firm nor its representatives may give tax or legal advice.

This page is general information and is not tax or legal advice. Rules and thresholds change. Confirm current figures with the administering agency or your CPA before acting.

What happens when one of us dies?

For a married couple this is the question most often skipped and most consequential. On the first death the household moves from two Social Security benefits to one, pension survivor elections take effect, the tax filing status changes, and the estate documents start to matter in a way they did not before.

Ask to see the plan for the surviving spouse specifically. What is the income, what is the tax picture, and does it still work. Ask how beneficiary designations were checked against the estate documents, because retirement accounts and insurance contracts pass by designation rather than through a will. That reconciliation is part of estate and legacy planning and it is done with your attorney.

Who holds the money, and who takes over?

Ask who custodies your accounts. Assets should be held at a named third-party custodian that sends you statements directly, not pooled anywhere. Ask what leaving looks like: what it costs, how long it takes, and what, if anything, carries a surrender charge or a holding period. Insurance contracts often do, and that should be explained before you buy rather than after.

Then ask what happens to your account if the advisor retires, becomes unavailable, or dies. A large share of the advisory industry is approaching retirement, and continuity plans vary widely. You are buying a relationship that is supposed to last decades. Ask how it survives the person.

Finally, ask how often the plan is rebuilt rather than merely reviewed, and what triggers a meeting outside the normal cadence. A projection that is never updated stops being useful quickly.

What a substantive answer sounds like

Capacity and compensation

Ask which capacity applies to any specific recommendation and how the firm is paid for it. Advisory recommendations carry a fiduciary duty under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Brokerage recommendations are governed by Regulation Best Interest. Insurance placements are a separate line of business. Many representatives are registered to act in more than one of these, which is normal and disclosable, and the useful question is not which label the firm uses but which capacity applies to the recommendation in front of you. Our page on fee-only versus comprehensive retirement planning covers the compensation models in more depth.

CFG Wealth Management is fee-based. LaMont Chandler holds FINRA Series 7, 24 and NASAA Series 63, 65 registrations, CRD 2794744, has been registered in the securities industry since 1996, and is registered in Kansas, Missouri, Texas and Idaho. He is involved directly in client meetings and reviews. Securities and advisory services are offered through Madison Avenue Securities, LLC, member FINRA and SIPC, and a registered investment advisor. CFG Wealth Management Inc. and Madison Avenue Securities are not affiliated companies. His record is available on FINRA BrokerCheck. Our office is on West 94th Terrace in Prairie Village, and we work with households across the communities we serve in the Kansas City area.

Common questions

Where this connects

• Comparing retirement planning firms in Prairie Village and Overland Park covers the public records to check first
• Evaluating a firm's Social Security and tax strategy goes deeper on the technical questions
• The Purpose Conversation is what a first meeting with us looks like
• More retirement planning insights