Financial Advisor Safeguard Volume 1: How to Protect Yourself, Your Practice and Your Aging Clients

You, as a financial advisor, are about to enter the perfect storm. Several factors are lining up to make the next ten years the most challenging years that you will ever face in your practice.

Consider these facts:

• Your clients are living longer than their parents. The fastest-growing age group is the very old, those people over 85.
• The Alzheimer's Association has predicted that 46% of people over age 85 will develop some form of dementia.It is expected that 10 million baby boomers will develop Alzheimer's. Unless we find a treatment or a cure, Alzheimer's will become the defining disease of the baby boomer Generation.

In 2009 Fidelity surveyed 350 advisors. More than 84% indicated that they had been touched by someone in their client base who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease. Despite their experience with the disease, more than 96% of the advisors did not feel that they were prepared to assist clients with Alzheimer's. And things have not changed since that survey. Very few firms have stepped forward with specific guidelines for their advisors to deal with diminished capacity.

You may have already had to deal with a client with diminished capacity. But most likely you do not have standard protocol to deal with this client. As a result you play it by ear. This is like holding a ticking time bomb. Sooner or later it is going to go off, and a client or client's family will go after you for handling their account improperly.

Based on my experience of over thirty-three years as a financial advisor, I will give you the seven steps that you can take to minimize the risk to you and your practice and take the appropriate actions to serve your clients with diminished capacity.