Jun 14, 2016 | aging, aging investor, financial elder abuse, senior citizen investor, senior investor
In his recent WSJ article, wealth advisor Paul Hynes raises this question. He points out that financial advisors are in a unique position to observe their clients over years, sometimes decades and they know their clients’ normal patterns and general life situations.
I am particularly interested in the subject and I agree with Mr. Hynes that advisors are well positioned to learn of changes in clients’ lives and to see red flags such as unusual activity in their accounts. He suggests that advisors should stay in communication with their clients’ families and that Adult Protective Services can be contacted if abuse is suspected. Here is where I question his advice as falling a bit short of what can be done.
As part of the national legal community dedicating time to the protection of vulnerable elders I see communications from lawyers all over the U.S. with complaints that Adult Protective Services are not taking financial elder abuse seriously enough in many places. When it is reported, APS may dismiss it as “a civil matter” in which they have no interest. APS is essentially an investigative help to the criminal justice system. It can intervene when an elder is in physical danger. Social workers and investigators from APS look into reports of abuse and help the DA determine whether there is evidence sufficient to prosecute a crime. If the matter involves the undue influence of a family member and the elder seems willing to give away money, even if duped into doing so, APS is unlikely to take any action.
Financial advisors must not rely on the idea that APS will protect their clients when abuse is suspected. Particularly in the case of family, close associates, and caregivers, APS may not wish to interfere unless or until an obvious crime has been committed. If is it not so obvious, it is up to others to take action to stop abuse. These others can include financial advisors, who may be in a highly trusted position with the elder. Advisors will see unusual withdrawals in the account or other signs of danger.
The financial services industry, generally, has avoided certain kinds of communication with family of aging investors due to privacy laws, concerns which they interpret as precluding them from sharing financial information. I do not agree that privacy should stop advisors from communication with family when an elder clearly needs protective action. There is a way around the privacy question. Policy can be created to obtain from every client a signed permission to communicate with a family member or trusted other appointed to step in when the advisor (and her compliance department or officer) has reasonably concluded that the elder is being taken advantage of financially or otherwise.
In his article, Paul Hynes suggests that wealth advisors should follow the notion “if you see something, say something” and I wholeheartedly agree. However, the industry needs to develop new, forward looking, senior specific policies to address what Hynes correctly points out as the rampant problem of elder abuse.
I’m doing my part to help by developing educational materials (Including books and online courses) for industry professionals to recognize the red flags warning of potential abuse, diminished financial capacity and how to get the necessary document in place around the issue of privacy by obtaining a client’s permission to communicate with others. Aging expertise from outside the financial services field is needed for all of these points. I hope everyone in the industry will pursue what FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) has suggested since 2008: that advisors put senior-specific policies in place to assist them in stemming the rising tide of elder financial abuse of their own aging clients.
Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt
AgingParents.com
Mar 25, 2016 | aging, aging investor, Alzheimer's disease, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, finances for elders, financial capacity, financial elder abuse, handling money for aging parents, handling money for seniors, investor, senior citizen investor, senior investor, seniors finances
Have you ever wondered about one of your
own client’s capacity for making financial decisions? Professionals who directly or indirectly sell services and products to aging people may not be clear about financial capacity. It is indeed a complex thing, and one should not underestimate how difficult it can be to make a determination about whether a client is impaired. Does the client seem “out of it” sometimes? Forgetful? Is he acting strangely? Maybe you just dismissed it if you noticed those things. You may have thought, “he’s just getting old”. Maybe you didn’t think it was any big deal. But was it? Diminished capacity may not be obvious at all. Small warning signs can be missed. And every warning sign is a clue. The clues can mount up and paint a picture. You need to be able to see it. And first you need to know what to look for in your aging clients. How do you decide whether someone has diminished capacity for financial decisions? Ultimately, the question of capacity is a
legal decision, aided by lawyers, medical professionals and sometimes by judges. And lawyers also have a difficult time seeing the grey areas and the nuances of thinking that comprise financial decision-making abilities. One thing every professional working with seniors should know are the warning signs of dementia. If you see enough of these warning signs, your client is likely to be impaired in her financial judgment Excellent information for the public is available on the Alzheimer’s Association website at
alz.org. Memory loss is often the first sign of dementia. There is a difference between memory loss a non-demented person experiences and the memory loss that evolves in to dementia. As an example, forgetting a person’s name is common and we usually remember the name later. (Does this ever happen to you, “it’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t remember right now”?) People who are developing dementia don’t remember these things later. Their short term memory is eroding steadily. They forget what was said in the middle of a sentence. They forget appointments. They don’t remember that you spoke with them yesterday.
Confusion is another sign. They may forget where they are going or get lost. They may exhibit unusual behavior from what is normal for them. These are the kinds of things that tip you off that a cognitive problem is looming. A person who shows you these signs may be impaired for making safe financial decisions. Beware of drawing general conclusions about dementia or Alzheimer's Disease from a single case with which you may have personal experience. If your client is not doing what your grandmother with Alzheimer's did, you can't be certain that your client does not have dementia. Have you as a financial professional had any personal experience with dementia in a family member or client? Let us know about what you did to handle the issues affecting so many. We welcome your input.
Need a quick checklist to use to identify the 10 red flags of diminished capacity in your clients? Get yours now by clicking below. It's free. Click here to get your free downloadable Checklist "The 10 Red Flags of Diminished Capacity" Dr. Mikol Davis & Carolyn Rosenblatt, R.N., Elder Law Attorney
Jan 16, 2016 | aging, aging investor, elder investor, elderly, handling money for seniors, senior citizen investor, senior investor, seniors finances, wealth transfer
“Best Practices For Success With Family Meetings”
The family meeting is the bedrock of a successful intergenerational wealth transfer. But how does the financial professional conduct these? What are the right ways and wrong ways to go about it?
If you want to learn a process, the kind of team you need and the best ways to have family meetings with your client and his heirs, you need this course. We will give you specific pointers on how to get started, how to deal with problematic family issues and how to bring in the best experts to help you. We cover a lot in an hour, so be ready to learn. You’ll come away a lot wiser about establishing a great relationship with your client and those who will inherit his assets.
Summary of course:
Family meetings are the bedrock of successful intergenerational wealth transfers. In this course you will learn how to help your client develop a family mission statement, and how to create an atmosphere of learning for any willing heirs who will take over responsibility for a family’s assets. There may be many different kinds of assets a high net worth family has. Heirs can’t keep control over those different assets without excellent preparation. We show you how to get that preparation in place and how to make sure it works. We also teach you about the warning signs of a family that is too dysfunctional for you to be able to help with wealth transfer. Your understanding and confidence in handling a family meeting will grow by leaps and bounds with this course.
Learning objectives:
- To improve your understanding of how wealth transfers fail and how to change this
- To enhance your ability to facilitate communication about transfer of wealth in families
- To improve your ability to retain management of assets held by aging investors that they intend to pass to their heirs
- To increase communication skills for developing trust between yourself, your client and her heirs
Jan 16, 2016 | aging, aging investor, elder investor, elderly, finances for elders, handling money for aging parents, senior citizen investor, senior investor, seniors finances, wealth transfer
“Improving Intergenerational Wealth Transfers”
Summary of course:
It’s pretty well known that intergenerational wealth transfers fail about 70% of the time. What makes the other 30% successful? If you’d like to learn how you can help your client be part of one of the successful families, you’ll need to understand the critical parts of success and how to achieve them. Communication is one of the things we talk about in this course. Who better to advise us than an experienced psychologist who has worked with families for over 40 years? Dr. Davis has given us great information to help ease your way and give you confidence in creating a path to a wealth transfer that works well.
Learning objectives:
- Facilitate advisor-led intergenerational communication.
- Improve retention of managed assets by establishing relationships with client’s heirs.
- Increase communication skills to build new client base of aging client’s heirs.
- Implement specific, established and successful communication techniques.
