The Second Horizon: the only stress test that tests the years you won’t see
Every retirement projection has two clocks in it. Most tools test one — the clock of the person at the keyboard. But a living annuity that must provide for a partner has to answer a harder question: does the plan still hold on their clock, in the years its owner won’t see? Here is why we built a test for that, and who it turns out to be for.
Two clocks, one standard
When you stress test a living annuity, you choose a horizon — a prudent age to test to, typically 95. That choice matters more than it looks: life expectancy is roughly a midpoint, and around half of people outlive it, which is exactly why a careful test uses a chosen standard rather than an expectancy.
But the standard is usually applied to one person. If there is a partner — married or not — who would rely on the same income, the household’s test only ends when the second clock does. A plan can pass comfortably on its owner’s clock and still run thin in precisely the years the other person faces alone. The bigger the age gap, the longer that untested stretch.
One partner, 70, holds the annuity — the test says Robust. The other is 62. On their clock, the same 95 standard runs eight more years. Robust for whom?
Our living annuity stress test now asks that question directly. After your own results, one further question adds your partner’s clock: their age, which life table to use, and what they would need after tax each month. The test then runs again — same engine, same legal drawdown limits, same standard — with their years included, their spending level from the assumed first death, and their own tax position, year by year.
Three households show why that matters — and why the question is not about who is older, who is wealthier, or who is married.
The builder
She built the practice, sold it, and holds the living annuity. Her husband is eight years younger and never had a pension of his own — her plan is his plan. Her stress test came back green, tested to 95 on her clock. On his clock, the same standard runs eight more years, and the test now runs them too: what the income could pay him, at his own tax rates, in the years after hers ends. Whether the answer is comfort or a correction, it is his answer — and she wanted it on the table while there was still time to act on it.
The unmarried couple
Twenty-two years together, never married. Here the numbers were the smaller half of the conversation, because a living annuity pays the nominated beneficiary — married or not. Here, unusually, the form wins. If the nomination is blank or out of date, the annuity pays into the estate instead: executor’s fees, months of delay, and an unmarried partner who may have to prove the relationship before seeing a cent. Their review was mostly a checklist — nomination current, election understood, first year’s decisions rehearsed. It ended an argument before it could ever start.
Two men, nine years apart
Retired to the coast, one annuity between them, a nine-year age gap. The test never asked who was the husband. It asked which life table fits, and what the one who stays would need after tax each month. On the younger partner’s clock, the 95 standard ran nine more years — years their original projection had simply never examined. The numbers held; the conversation the results started, about the paperwork and the first decisions a survivor would face, was the part they said they could not have had on their own.
What the test shows — and what it deliberately does not
The Second Horizon shows the extension honestly: how far the standard runs on your partner’s clock, what each stress scenario could pay toward their planned need, and a verdict that answers to the household’s later expectancy — not only the annuitant’s. The spending step-down is stated and adjustable, the assumed timing of the first death is disclosed as an assumption, and every figure stays in today’s money.
What it does not do is hand anyone a mortality slider, promise an outcome, or replace the review. The arithmetic can check whether the numbers could hold; it cannot check whether the nomination is current, the tax election understood, or the first drawdown decision rehearsed. The numbers can survive and the plan can still fail on a form — that is the part a structured review exists for.
Test the years you won’t see
The stress test is free and takes about five minutes. It models South Africa’s 2.5%–17.5% drawdown limits exactly, shows every rand in today’s money — and after your own results, one question adds your partner’s clock.
Run the Living Annuity Stress TestIllustrative only. No advice. No obligation.
