This article was originally published in the Financial Advisor Magazine.
Clients Who Lose A Spouse Require Both Empathy And Skill
More than half of Dan Lash’s clients are widows and he expects another 30 to 40 percent will become so eventually, while nationwide 53 percent of widows have not prepared for what would happen if their spouse died, according to a new Merrill Lynch/Age Wave Study study.
When asked by his clients, Lash, a partner at Vienna, Va.-based VLP Financial Advisors, advised calculating the value of marital property within six months of a spouse’s death.
“An appraisal will determine what the gain is and set a new cost basis in the event you sell the home five years later,” said Lash.
Widowed, a significant demographic
By sheer virtue of their numbers, the widowed have become a significant demographic with 20 million currently residing in the U.S. The “Widowhood By The Numbers” study from Merrill Lynch and Age Wave found that among them, four-in-10 women experience widowhood as a trigger to begin working with a financial advisor.
“They are in their 70s and 80s and single again for the first time in years,” said Tom Balcom whose financial advisory practice, 1650 Wealth Management, is based in the middle of the “silver tsunami” in Lauderdale by the Sea, Florida. “A financial advisor can help by creating a budget that includes outflows and inflows such as social security, retirement portfolio disbursements, annuity payments, spousal benefits and pension income. If a budget already exists, the advisor can adjust it if the widow now has to live on one social security check instead of two.”
One variable that sets apart the widower demographic from singles who have never been married is mourning.
“The danger is for the widow to be overwhelmed with grief and to allow finances to take a backseat, which makes decisions even tougher to deal with later,” said Lisa Margeson, head of retirement client experience and communications at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
About 64 percent who had not planned at all worried they would be unable to support themselves immediately after the death of their spouse.
“Widowed clients are often unsure and scared because they don’t want to be taken advantage of,” said Cary Carbonaro, managing director of United Capital of New York and New Jersey and 2014 CFP Board Ambassador.
Among the challenges they face is the complex task of juggling multiple incoming assets. Some 69 percent of widows will receive a median amount of $15,000 in survivors social security, 63% will receive a median of $15,000 in life insurance, 46 percent receive a median of $25,000 from their spouse’s pension and 45 percent receive a median of $20,000 from spouse’s 401k income.
This article was originally published in the Financial Advisor Magazine.
