Advisers need to look past zeros

financial-planning/life-insurance/money/

16 October 2017
| By Jassmyn |
image
image
expand image

Financial advisers who do not understand their client’s health and lifestyle is failing them, Leading Advice believes.

The financial planning firm said advisers needed to know their clients’ mental and physical health almost as intimately as their doctor and could not ever provide truly effective planning and wealth protection strategies if they did not.

Leading Advice’s managing director and financial adviser, Katrina Haskew, said a client’s health could determine which financial strategies could actually be followed and what was not feasible.

“There’s no point formulating an aggressive expansion strategy for a business owner who is burnt out, not sleeping, and slowly developing a heart condition from stress and a lack of exercise and healthy eating,” she said.

“This is a recipe for absolute disaster, and could lead to financial ruin when things inevitably spiral out of control.”

Haskew said wealth protection strategies could be formulated by knowing medical risk factors and lifestyle goals.

“The sooner we know this the better, because sometimes you can change your eligibility through minor lifestyle changes,” she said.

“Understanding your lifestyle goals can also help us choose between the myriad of insurance options.”

In preparing for retirement, Haskew said if advisers did not know how long a client would live they would not know how much they would need to save.

She said pre-existing diseases or conditions, social and familial support systems, a sense of purpose, access to health facilities would impact longevity after retirement.

“It’s no secret being physically and mentally healthy often equates to healthier finances,” Haskew said.

“Understanding your client’s health and lifestyle is integral to providing effective financial advice. Any adviser who is not doing this is absolutely failing their clients in my opinion.”

Read more about:

AUTHOR

Recommended for you

sub-bgsidebar subscription

Never miss the latest news and developments in wealth management industry

MARKET INSIGHTS

So we are now underwriting criminal scams?...

1 month 3 weeks ago

Glad to see the back of you Steve. You made financial more expensive, not more affordable as you claim, and presided ...

2 months ago

Completely agree Peter. The definition of 'significant change is circumstances relevant to the scope of the advice' is s...

4 months ago

Entireti has unveiled the new name for the AMP financial advice businesses that it acquired last year....

4 weeks ago

A Sydney financial adviser has been permanently banned from providing any financial services, with the regulator deriding his “lack of integrity, trustworthiness and prof...

2 weeks 6 days ago

Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, has provided further information about the second tranche of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms....

1 week 5 days ago

TOP PERFORMING FUNDS