OpinionMay 23, 2026 — 5:01amMany people approaching retirement feel a deep, gut-level fear about how to spend. They have spent the past decade, or maybe two, saving hard for what could be a 30-year retirement, and most have no real idea how their money will work once they get there.Financial advice, the only industry legally able to help with that fear, has spent years rewriting its business models around managing investments for an ongoing annual fee, making it expensive and largely the domain of the wealthy.Lifetime income streams are an uncommon source of retirement income, but they’re set to get more popular.Michael HowardSuper funds have been left to solve the problem for everyone else, and they have been loudly encouraged by the government to step up with a combination of digital advice and lifetime income products.This week, two announcements signal that everyday people should start getting excited about doing retirement income differently.Colonial First State has announced one of the biggest expansions of retirement solutions I have seen, bringing Challenger, BlackRock and Generation Life into a single integrated platform for advisers and their own unadvised members.Its new lifetime income solutions will be offered via its super fund or its adviser platform, accessed through complex adviser-led advice or through low-cost intra-fund and retirement advice, largely digital but with real advisers supporting the journey.Imagine if your super fund paid you a regular, guaranteed income for the rest of your life after you stopped working.On Monday, AMP will become the first major super fund to launch a fully branded, actively promoted direct-to-member lifetime retirement income product at real scale. What makes its model clever is that it works in two stages.AMP Super Lifetime can be switched on years before retirement inside an existing AMP Super account at no extra cost, using government deeming rules to begin building a lower concessional balance for Centrelink purposes from the day you activate it. The AMP Lifetime Retirement Income launching on Monday then converts that into an income for life.Most lifetime income products ask you to decide at retirement. AMP’s model lets you start the clock years earlier, working in the background to set your super’s Centrelink asset value baseline lower and potentially unlocking higher age pension payments at retirement.Other funds are already in the space or moving fast. UniSuper offers both a simple CPI-indexed product and Challenger’s Lifetime Income solution, funnelling members towards them through its advisers and digital advice platform.Hostplus offers its CPIplus product, a limited CPI-plus income option for pension members. MLC has launched Retirement Boost for advisers and expects to follow with a direct-to-member solution later this year.AustralianSuper, NGS and Brighter Super have all announced they will go live with lifetime income products this year, alongside the digital advice capability needed to help members understand and buy them. ART, the country’s second-largest fund, has had a lifetime pension available for some time but does not yet promote it widely.Within 12 months, people approaching retirement will have many new options, most supported by intra-fund advice, one-off advice or digital funnels, or all three, and not all requiring an expensive ongoing adviser.If you are within 10 years of retirement, it is time to understand what is on its way and how it is going to change the way Australians turn their super into an income that lasts 30 years, maximises their age pension, and lets them enjoy what they have saved.What is a lifetime income stream?Imagine if your super fund paid you a regular, guaranteed income for the rest of your life after you stopped working, much like your wage when you were working. Not a lump sum you have to carefully ration across decades you cannot predict, but a reliable income that arrives, no matter how long you live, what sharemarkets do or how many birthdays you rack up.These products have existed in various forms for a long time, but the older versions, traditional annuities, were clunky and inflexible. You would put money in, receive a fixed payment out, and if your circumstances changed, you died younger than expected, or you needed access to the funds, tough luck. Not surprisingly, many people gave them a wide berth.The new generation is entirely different. They are redesigned for modern retirement, in which people routinely live into their 80s and 90s and super and the age pension need to work together as a system.Keeping across your different retirement income options is essential.Getty ImagesThese newer investment-linked products offer a guaranteed income for life, no matter how long you live; market-linked bonuses in good years so your income is not frozen in time; flexibility to access capital if something big and unexpected comes up; and death benefits, so your family is not left with nothing if you go earlier than expected.Most people use them as one reliable layer of retirement income alongside an account-based pension and the age pension. Think of it as a floor of guaranteed income underneath everything else, so you can spend more freely from the rest of your money, potentially at higher growth levels, without constantly worrying about that floor giving way.Two types exist. CPI-indexed products pay a fixed income rising each year with inflation. They are simple and predictable, but your income will not grow beyond CPI. Investment-linked products pay a base income plus annual bonuses tied to investment performance, with downside protection so income cannot fall below a floor. They are more complex, but they give you exposure to market growth while still ensuring income for life. For people working with an adviser on the more sophisticated platform-based versions, there is also real flexibility in how the underlying assets are invested and managed.One feature both types share deserves special attention. When you put money into an eligible lifetime income product, Centrelink counts only 60 per cent of it as an asset for the age pension assets test for at least five years, or until you turn 85.After that, it drops to 30 per cent. Put in $200,000 and Centrelink treats it as $120,000. A home owner couple can have up to $1,085,000 in combined assessable assets and still receive a part pension.Many couples who assume the pension has nothing to do with them have simply never checked. AMP data shows members using these products spend 60 per cent more in retirement than those without one. Not because they have more money, but because they finally feel safe spending what they have.Who are they useful for?Lifetime income streams are not for everyone, but they help more people than most realise, breaking into two groups.The first includes anyone eligible for less than the full age pension. A home owner couple starts losing the full pension once combined assessable assets exceed $481,500, losing it entirely at $1,085,000. A single home owner starts losing it at $321,500 and loses it entirely at $722,000.That is a very wide band. Moving a portion of super into a qualifying product reduces what Centrelink counts by 40 per cent, unlocking pension entitlements that were not there before. You get the lifetime income from the product, plus more age pension.The second group includes people above the pension threshold, up to about $1.5 million. Even without the Centrelink benefit, a guaranteed income floor changes how retirement feels. A lifetime income stream answers the “is it enough?” question in a way a spreadsheet never quite can.They are less useful for people already on the full pension regardless, or those with huge balances focused on maximising what they leave behind.Until recently, most of these products were accessible only through a financial adviser, which put them out of reach for many ordinary Australians. That is changing. Super funds are increasingly offering lifetime income products directly to members, with digital advice journeys, one-off advice options and human support built in.If you are within 10 years of retirement, start with your own super fund. Ask whether it offers a lifetime income product, how you access it, and what it costs.If it doesn’t offer one yet, ask when it plans to. And if you have a financial adviser, ask them whether they have considered one for you. If they have not, that conversation is well overdue.Bec Wilson is author of the bestseller How To Have an Epic Retirement and the newly released Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife. She writes a weekly newsletter at epicretirement.net and hosts the Prime Time podcast.Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.Expert tips on how to save, invest and make the most of your money delivered to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up for our Real Money newsletter.Bec Wilson is the author of How To Have An Epic Retirement and writes a weekly newsletter for pre- and post-retirees at epicretirement.net.From our partners