The widows of opportunity

On average, Australian women are outlasting their men by five years, creating an interesting and growing niche market.

On average, Australian women are outlasting their men by five years, creating an interesting and growing niche market.

Statistically, most Australian women are likely to outlive their husbands. And as their circumstances change, many are likely to need financial advice to en-sure that losing their husband doesn't mean also losing the standard of living they are used to.

According to 1997 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, men have a mean life expectancy of nearly 76 while women live five years longer with a mean life expectancy over 81.

For financial planners, this means a regular addition of widows into stream of people needing first time or continuing advice.

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According to Harold Bodinnar & Associates chairman Harold Bodinnar, widows typi-cally fall into two groups.

The first has visited a financial planner with their husband before and has dealt with the issue of one of them passing away first, normally the husband.

The second group, however, has let her husband attend to the family's financial affairs and doesn't know where to go for help.

Added to these are other groups of potential widow clients: those who believe their financial situation has reached a critical point and those who are unhappy with advice they have already received, be it from family, friends or other fi-nancial service providers.

Regardless of background, the experts say that widows must be dealt with sensi-tively. To do this, financial planners have to create a relationship with the client which looks beyond the purely financial and examines how she can maintain her chosen lifestyle.

AXA Trustees general manager Peter Williams says advisers need to take a holis-tic view of planning.

"They need a strong degree of empathy and patience as they have to meet special needs related to generational issues such as health bills or possible retirement or nursing home concerns," he says.

"It goes beyond dollars and cents issues and is a combination of financial plan-ning and hand holding," he says.

According to the experts, the biggest factor restricting the investment deci-sions of widows is education. Although this is common handicap among many inves-tors irrespective of age, the financial acumen of the average widow, they say, is generally one or two generations behind her younger peers.

"There is a need for the empathetic planner to educate widows as they are sig-nificant investors with large sums of money, but women don't need to be patron-ised," says BT executive vice president of funds management Vivian James.

"They don't need products with flowery covers but rather education and informa-tion."

On the widows market, Godfrey Pembroke principal consultant Liz Wheeler says: "It is a growing market, with some clients aged well into their 90s and they rely almost entirely on your advice which is a huge responsibility. Therefore, you have to be absolute right with what you say. You almost become a member of the family."

And, from playing bridge to sponsoring bowls tournaments, advisers are out there trying to capture a stake of this often highly lucrative customer base.

"The most common way, of course, is to seek referrals from existing clients. Widows will know others in similar situations," says Macquarie Bank executive director Tim Farrelly.

He adds that seminars for retirees are also an excellent marketing tool, espe-cially those that deal with particular areas of concern.

Perpetual Private Clients' national manager of business development and market-ing, Rohan Mead, says attendance at such forums is surprisingly high.

"Many, many hundreds of retirees and widows attend seminars nation-wide... Our key approach is to demonstrate how relevant areas of the law and our business will work for them," he says.

Bodinnar says radio advertising also has the ability to reach this target market in a way not possible through print and television advertising.

With the increasing market segmentation of radio, listeners are attracted to particular stations and advisers can take advantage of this.

"Radio stations such as Christian radio 2CBA and 2GB in Sydney are ideal since they have age ranges from the late 30s well into the 80s," Bodinnar says.

Many widows, however, are already clients of financial planners, having sought advice with their partners at retirement age.

"Most retirees in the past 10 to 15 years have seen a financial planner as a large proportion have significant assets to manage with most funds coming from super payouts," Farrelly says.

Because of this, Farrelly recommends that planners try to create ties with po-tential clients ahead of retirement.

"Advisers should, ideally, look to form a link with the super administrator or human resources staff within organisations and become, say, one of a number of recommend advisers when staff ask for advice regarding retirement and invest-ments," he says.