Welcome back to “Ask an Advisor,” the advice column where real financial professionals answer questions from real people. The topic can be anything in the world of finance, from retirement to taxes to wealth management — or even advice on advising.
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Financial advisors are a crucial point of contact for the clients they work with, but they can’t handle every situation in their lives. Experts are available in the form of outside professionals.
However, how and when to involve them can be tricky for even the most careful financial advisor. Sometimes a client who already has several trusted points of contact will enter into a relationship with a financial advisorBut, that isn’t always the case.
If a financial advisor recommends someone else to handle a specific situation and the client isn’t satisfied, that can reflect poorly back on them. On the other hand, financial advisors who try to do it all themselves aren’t necessarily capable of giving the best possible advice to their clients. They could be missing certain benefits that might be obvious to someone steeped in that area of expertise. This is especially true when it comes to complicated disciplines like elder law or health care.
So this week, our question for advisors is centered around how financial advisors engage with those outside their profession to bring the best guidance to their clients.
Dear advisors,
How do financial advisors coordinate with other professionals, like elder law attorneys or aging life care managers, to support your clients?
Sincerely,
Tom WestSenior PartnerSignature Estate & Investment AdvisorsLos Angeles
In response, several advisors answered the call with their strategies for those interested in extending a hand to professionals in other realms. Their answers ran the gamut, but most agreed that active collaboration is key to ensuring clients are receiving the best possible service from their financial advisor relationship. Financial advisors who work in a closed-off environment simply aren’t capable of knowing or doing it all.
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Among the suggestions were to ask new clients to rate how well they work with the other professionals who may already be on their roster, review holistic plans with both clients and service providers and reach out to legal experts to handle the finer points of estate planning.
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Here are some of the responses we received, edited lightly for clarity and length:
