Help Centre/Tutorials/How to use the retirement Safety tab

How to use the retirement Safety tab

2 min read

Summary

The Safety tab (Solo plan or above) breaks your plan down into three views: a withdrawal-rate gauge, an income floor map, and a spending sensitivity chart.
None of these combine into a single score — each is a different lens on the same plan, and you read them together.
Use them to see not just whether your plan is likely to succeed, but why, and where a small change would help most.

Steps

1. Open the Safety tab. It needs at least one invested account (pension, ISA, or GIA) to show anything.

2. Check the Withdrawal Rate gauge — your initial year of portfolio drawdown (spending minus income, divided by your invested portfolio at retirement) shown against reference bands: ≤2.5% Low, 2.5–3.5% Moderate, 3.5–4.5% Elevated, above 4.5% High.

3. Check the Income Floor — the share of your retirement spending covered by guaranteed income (state pension, DB pensions, annuities) versus other income (rental, employment) versus money you'll need to draw from your portfolio. A higher floor means less of your spending depends on markets.

4. Check Spending Sensitivity — a replay of your exact plan at six spending levels (70% to 120% of your planned amount), showing how Plan Confidence moves as spending changes. The 100% row always matches your dashboard's Plan Confidence exactly, since it replays the same stored market paths.

Example scenarios

"My Plan Confidence is high, but is my plan actually resilient?"

Open the Safety tab even when your headline number looks strong. A high Plan Confidence can still sit on a thin income floor or a withdrawal rate in the "Elevated" band — the Safety tab surfaces that detail the single headline number doesn't show.

"Which part of my plan should I focus on first?"

Look at the Withdrawal Rate gauge and the Income Floor together. A high withdrawal rate paired with a low income floor means your plan leans heavily on portfolio performance — that combination is usually where a targeted change (retiring a little later, increasing guaranteed income, trimming early spending) has the biggest effect. Use Spending Sensitivity to see roughly how much of a difference a given change would make before committing to it.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from Plan Confidence?

Plan Confidence is a single headline percentage. The Safety tab doesn't produce another score to compare against it — instead it gives you three separate views (withdrawal rate, income floor, spending sensitivity) that explain what's actually driving that number.

What's the difference between guaranteed income and other income on the Income Floor chart?

Guaranteed income — state pension, DB pensions, annuities — is contractually secure regardless of markets, so it counts toward your floor. Other income — rental, employment — is real money but can stop, so it's shown as a separate band rather than counted as part of the floor.