Add Value By Offering Family Meetings For Aging Clients

Add Value By Offering Family Meetings For Aging Clients

Some advisors don't have any clients over age 75 and some of you have a book full of them. No matter what you have now, it is certain that if you intend to keep clients long term, you'll have elderly among them. Here is an important way to add value to what you do for them: meet with them and their intended heirs to discuss finances and aging issues.

Initiating family meetings about investments is not something most people are doing all by themselves. They need a nudge and you are the right person to give that nudge. What's the big deal? Don't underestimate the importance of family communication about their assets. Lack of trust and communication between generations causes 70% of wealth transfers to fail.

What that means is that the family wealth is lost when it gets into the hands of the first generation of heirs to follow the matriarch and patriarch. They aren't ready for and don't handle it well. You may be helping your client to build and maintain wealth but the client is not preparing his heirs to receive it. You can certainly help by offering to conduct meetings and explaining the strategy of wealth building and maintaining assets that you do.

There is more to the discussion in a family meeting than investments and the passing on of assets. There is the sometimes long, drawn-out period of an elder in failing health. Does the spouse know what to do and how much things will cost in providing long-term care to a loved one? Do the adult children know? It can get quite complicated if your client, like most people chooses to age in place at home rather than go to a facility to get needed care. Hiring, managing and supervising home care workers is no small task for anyone. You can offer factual information.

When dementia is an issue, you could be looking at a client living with it for 20 years. Each year that passes with this fatal brain disease is a year of greater dependency on others to get by. The possibility of long-term care needs discussion among family members. Starting the conversation may not be within your comfort zone but the skills of how to talk about these emotional subjects can be learned.

Most advisors proclaim that they want to add value to their services and they need to show how they are better than the competition. Have you considered that you can promote your ability and willingness to protect your client's financial safety for life as a selling point? You go way past the "successful retirement planning" line to the things that worry people about aging. You educate, collaborate, and coordinate discussions with their families and help them overcome the resistance to delving into aging issues no one likes to talk about. It is a part of your potential services you should not overlook nor avoid.

To learn some practical tips on how to conduct successful family meetings, check out our anytime on-demand online course here. It's CFP accredited, one hour, and very affordable. Join us today!

 

Dr. Mikol Davis and Carolyn Rosenblatt, co-founders of AgingInvestor.com

Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, Elder Law Attorney offers a wealth of experience with aging to help you create tools so you can skillfully manage your aging clients. You will understand your rights and theirs so you can stay safe and keep them safe too.

Dr. Mikol Davis, Psychologist, Gerontologist offers in depth of knowledge about diminished financial capacity in older adults to help you strategize best practices so you can protect your vulnerable aging clients.

They are the authors of "Succeed With Senior Clients: A Financial Advisors Guide To Best Practice," and "Hidden Truths About Retirement And Long Term Care," available at AgingInvestor.com offers accredited cutting edge on-line continuing education courses for financial professionals wanting to expand their expertise in best practices for their aging clients. To learn more about our courses click HERE

Three Retirement Mistakes Sure To Create A Mess For Your Client’s Family

Three Retirement Mistakes Sure To Create A Mess For Your Client’s Family

With 10,000 Boomers turning 65 every day, no wonder there is so much talk about retirement. You may be planning busily to get your clients a stable income and keep the portfolio on track. But besides advice on how to "have a secure retirement" and "maintain your lifestyle" there's some important information too few are taking about. That's the retirement-era mistakes people make that are pretty much guaranteed to leave their families in a stressful mess no matter how well you manage their finances. Long experience here at AgingInvestor.com and  AgingParents.com has revealed much about retired older clients. We hear about what your aging clients do and don't do to make life stressful for their adult children.  Here are what we call the Top Three of numerous errors aging clients make that you can at least remind them to avoid. Maybe you don't get too far into their personal lives and relationships with their adult children, but we think you should go farther than is traditional for you to do. Their financial safety is at stake.

Mistake Number One: They never discuss finances with their spouses or adult kids. It's private, they think.

The problem with this is that they're not going to live forever. Family members need to know where the funds are, what you're managing and what to do when the patriarch or matriarch becomes impaired or dies. Most people do suffer health declines as they age and millions will develop dementia. What then? You can't take direction from a client who is too incapacitated to make a decision about finances. Encourage family meetings. Persuade your older clients of the necessity to communicate about finances so you can rely on a surrogate decision maker when or if your client loses mental capacity. You need to take leadership on this if the client doesn't do it. The family needs to be prepared or suffer extreme stress when things go wrong for the aging parent.

Mistake Number Two: They believe they'll never fall for a scam. They're way too smart for that.

Very smart and capable folks get taken by scammers every day. In fact, some of your experienced and capable clients develop Alzheimer's disease and can cover it up for a long time. But they lose financial decision-making capacity early in the disease process when other functions seem fine. Impaired people are more vulnerable than ever. You need to involve your client and family in awareness of the latest scams and fraud targeting seniors. Make it your business to give them information and links to good resources like the AARP Fraud Watch Network. They need to be aware of telephone scams, ID theft, and Internet thieves. When you protect their money, you protect your fees. If your client gets taken by a scam, chances are their family will have to help clean up the mess.

Mistake Number Three: They think they don't need to plan for long-term care. They'll never need it of course.

This mistake involves both you as a financial professional as well as retirement age clients in denial about ever needing expensive help for disabling conditions. For your part, your industry is inaccurately providing statistics about how much a retired couple, age 65 will need for "out of pocket medical expenses" and you guide clients accordingly. That is not fair to them because it is not truthful. Out of pocket medical expenses are not limited to the average cost of Medicare supplemental insurance and non-covered prescription costs. That's what you may have relied on. Wrong. How about hearing aids, dental work, help at home from an agency worker, adult day centers and the many other aspects of long-term needs? Educate yourself first and then advise your clients. Long-term care could otherwise bankrupt them. And the family will bear the burden of caring for them then.

Perhaps your viewpoint is limited to the funds you manage and the income targets you and the client have decided upon. But there is far more to the retirement picture than that. We encourage you to take a deeper dive into retirement planning and gain a realistic view of how you can help clients avoid these big mistakes.

 

 

Dr. Mikol Davis and Carolyn Rosenblatt, co-founders of AgingInvestor.com

Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, Elder Law Attorney offers a wealth of experience with aging to help you create tools so you can skillfully manage your aging clients. You will understand your rights and theirs so you can stay safe and keep them safe too.

Dr. Mikol Davis, Psychologist, Gerontologist offers in depth of knowledge about diminished financial capacity in older adults to help you strategize best practices so you can protect your vulnerable aging clients.

They are the authors of "Succeed With Senior Clients: A Financial Advisors Guide To Best Practice," and "Hidden Truths About Retirement And Long Term Care," available at AgingInvestor.com offers accredited cutting edge on-line continuing education courses for financial professionals wanting to expand their expertise in best practices for their aging clients. To learn more about our courses click HERE