5 things senior clients wish their advisors knew

Recently LifeHealthPro.com, the only complete online destination for life & health insurance advisors, posted an article about the top things senior clients wish their advisors knew.

In March 2014, more than 200 seniors responded to their survey about their likes, needs, financial concerns, career outlook and asset base. What followed was a detailed picture of this market, growing larger every day with the rapid aging of the baby boomers. Here’s a peek inside the collective mind of the senior market, complete with their thoughts on selling, marketing and long-term financial goal setting.

1. The language you use is important.

Older person. Aging adult. Senior citizen. The debate over what to label the 65+ population has never been fiercer. Being 70 in 2014 is not what it was thirty years ago, or even at the start of the 21^st century. Many of today’s seniors are still working; most are still intensely active. The baby boomersthat are transitioning into this market are a diverse group, with varied needs and opinions, but they are united on one thing: They don’t ever want to be viewed as old.

2. The No. 1 thing they want from an advisor is trust.

In a post-recession world, trust is an increasingly elusive asset, and senior clients value it highly. A whopping 64 percent named trust as the thing they most looked for in an advisor relationship, beating out other desirable qualities like experience (22%) and variety of products offered (4%).

3. The No. 1 thing they don’t want is an overly aggressive salesperson.

Almost unanimously, respondents agreed that pushiness was a deal-breaker for an advisor relationship. Seventy-eight percent said that the No. 1 thing they look to avoid in an advisor was an aggressive salesperson. This falls in line with the direction the industry is moving, which is increasingly holistic, less focused on individual products, and more likely to advise on a complex range of financial planning questions, from Social Security claiming strategies to retirement income planning to estate planning and long-term care.

4. They like working.

Seniors are still working, and not just because we’re coming out of a lengthy economic lull. Ninety-one percent of survey respondents said they were still employed; among them, 63 percent said the reason was that they liked working. Write-in responses confirmed this sentiment, with answers like “I am still having fun,” “I’m too young to retire and I like what I do,” and “Have a project I want to get out there, albeit may not happen.”

Some, of course, are still working due purely to financial necessity. Nineteen percent noted they had to postpone retirement to stay above water; an additional 4 percent were working to cover costs related to their parents and/or kids and grandkids — a reminder that the financial toll of being a caregiver is high.

5. Estate planning is a top priority.

Crafting a tailored estate plan is understood to be critical by a large segment of this demographic. Sixty-five percent of respondents have an estate plan in place already. Among the 35 percent that did not, just over a fifth are interested in creating one. The remaining 28 percent may need more information before they put in the time, but they’re a valuable market once persuaded: Nearly 25 percent of survey respondents had assets of a million or more.