Clients Need Help With the Bad Days, Too: Allianz Life’s Corey Walther

Corey Walther says retirement advisors need to understand that hurricanes are coming. And advisors should build risk management into a client’s retirement planning strategy long before the winds pick up.

Walther is the president of Allianz Life Financial Services, a Minneapolis-based broker-dealer arm of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America that notes that it does not provide financial planning services of its own, but does work with many financial professionals who do offer some combination of life insurance, annuities and financial advice.

Allianz Life is an affiliate of Allianz S.E., a German insurance giant. The company reported $7.2 billion in U.S. individual annuity sales for the second quarter. It ranked second in terms of non-variable indexed annuity sales, and third in terms of sales of registered index-linked annuities.

Walther has been in his current position since 2019 and at Allianz Life since 1998. Before he moved to Allianz Life, he was a financial planner at RBC Wealth Management.

He has a bachelor’s degree in finance from Minnesota State University Moorhead and a master’s degree in business from the University of Minnesota’s management school. He also holds the Chartered Financial Consultant, Retirement Income Certified Professional, Wealth Management Certified Professional and Chartered Life Underwriter professional designations.

He’s a co-chair of the Annuity & Insurance Solutions Community at the Money Management Institute and a board member of the Insured Retirement Institute.

Here are some of the things Walther said about inflation, risk management and technology in a recent email interview.

The interview has been condensed and edited.

THINKADVISOR: What took up the most time and energy in the first half of the year, and what did you learn from that?

COREY WALTHER: The stock market has been on a roller coaster, while interest rates have risen rapidly.

At the same time, gas prices are at record levels and inflation jumped in June to a new 40-year high, breaking a record dating back to November 1981.

As a result, people’s purchasing power has eroded significantly across the board, from basic needs such as groceries, utilities, gas, rent and other services to discretionary items such as leisure travel.

That chaos is putting stress on the financial plans of retirees, pre-retirees and investors looking to build wealth. This, in turn, puts stress on financial professionals.

I’m trying to help financial professionals successfully navigate through this market environment and address the many challenges facing today’s investors, including risk in their clients’ portfolios.

We have to dig in deep and build resiliency by incorporating a risk management perspective — to help clients either stay on or get back on track.

Risk management takes time, and it is not a one-size-fits-all solution, which really allows financial professionals to amplify their value proposition to their clients.

What we’re learning during this time is the importance of building a holistic financial strategy that’s based on the client’s particular risk tolerance and helping to create resilient portfolios that seek to improve a client’s probability of success without jeopardizing their standard of living in retirement.

Financial professionals should be integrating strategies and products that address both the known and unpredictable risks in retirement from the start.

As the old saying goes, “you can’t fix a ship in a hurricane.” The same is true with retirement strategies.

Scenarios like our current market conditions can and will happen. It’s better to plan for the unexpected and be prepared by integrating risk management strategies.

What are you focusing on the most right now?

My main focus has been helping financial professionals to integrate risk management into their long-term strategies with clients.

The idea is for financial professionals to help clients do more than accumulate assets. We want to help people build and protect wealth and then transition that into sustainable guaranteed income streams in retirement.

At the end of the day, the big thing that many people want is assurance that they will have enough money to last their lifetime.

Over four in 10 (44%) respondents said making sure they have enough money is one of the most important things financial professionals can do to help, according to the latest Allianz Life Retirement Risk Readiness Study.

We want to ensure that people can live in retirement prepared and retire on their own terms.