New research indicates that wealthier preretirees and retireesmight need some help figuring out a drawdown strategy forretirement assets, and are reluctant to leave funds in employers’retirement plans.

In a study examining the impact of parenthood and wealthtransfer on retirement funding, Hearts and Walletsconsidered a specific segment of the population: the 5.2 millionhouseholds between the ages of 53 and 70 who have from$500,000–$5,000,000 in investable assets and who as a group controlabout $10 trillion in assets.

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For the study, H&W looked at three consumer groups that makeup 82 percent of these households and control 84 percent of theassets: nonparents—households with no children, or 1.8 millionhouseholds who make decisions about $3.5 trillion; parents who planto spend all their assets in retirement,or 1.0 million households who make decisions about $1.7 trillion;and parents who plan to leave a legacy, 1.5 million households whomake decisions about $3.1 trillion.

While the study looked at a number of attitudes about money,retirement, legacies and planning, one interesting outcome was therevelation that people don’t necessarily do all that well atdrawing on retirement funds, no matter whether they intend to leavea legacy or not.

Their spending patterns aren’t optimized to make theirretirement income see them all the way through retirement.

They’re also not comfortable with the idea of leaving theirretirement money in the hands of their employer.

Some say it’s because they want to cut all ties with theemployer, and others are looking for ways to annuitize theirmoney—despite a lack of knowledge about the best time to begindrawing income from an annuity or how best to buy one.

Most—53 percent—would not leave their retirement money in anemployer’s retirement plan once they’ve left the job, despite thefact that fees within the plan can be lower than those they mayface when considering rollover options or annuity purchases withthe money.

This held true across all groups in the study. Only 23 percentindicated that they’d leave 401(k) money where it was, while 17percent didn’t know.