RIA Enlists Aging Expert to Meet Clients’ Growing Needs

A registered investment advisory firm looking to improve its service to older clients and their families has appointed its first director of senior living planning.

RIAs often hire financial advisors, investment experts, insurance or benefits specialists, relationship managers and administrative staff, but GYL Financial Synergies of West Hartford, Connecticut took a different approach by calling on experienced social worker and former owner of a private elder care practice, Joan Garbow for the new role last month.

GYL Financial Synergies

The position emphasizes how advisory practices using outsourced and in some cases internal resources for services related to health care and aging, which may include: greater complexity in areas such as family dynamics And navigating medicare plans and benefits.

“I’m going to be educating wealth advisors, staff and also clients on the things they need to think about, look at and plan for as they age?” Garbow, who co-hosted a webinar on aging alongside GYL Financial CEO Gerald Goldberg a few weeks after joining the firm, said in an interview. “I’ll also be stepping into a lot of these situations where people haven’t planned or things happen suddenly. I’m a resource for the clients and the advisors in those situations who need help, for example, getting the medical care they need, the advocacy they need and just understanding the systems that we have in our healthcare world.”

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Garbow previously served the firm’s clients on an outside basis as a 25-year licensed clinical social worker, an advanced professional member of the Aging Life Care Association and a former president of that organization’s New England chapter. The firm will “benefit from Joan’s expertise” in areas such as multigenerational planning and GYL Financial’s family office services, said Joshua Brier, general manager of the RIA, owned by Focus Financial Partners, with 21 wealth advisors and $10.8 billion in client assets.

The challenges of aging are “a place where we know we can expand our offerings in the family office space in a way that is appropriate and meaningful for those clients,” Brier said. “We know that there is, unfortunately, a bit of a stigma around aging in our country, and so we want to work to turn that around and embrace that.”

The country’s demographics reveal the key business incentives to better serve aging clients. Between the last two census surveys in 2010 and 2020The number of Americans aged 65 or older increased by a record 15.5 million people to 55.8 million total — about one in six nationwide. By the end of this decade, all baby boomers will be at least 65 years old. Another 15 years later, in 2045, baby boomers and the generation before them will be an estimated $72.6 trillion to their descendants as part of the great wealth transfer.

In addition to the business and customer service aspects that consulting firms are looking to leverage to increase their aging resources, they also face compliance obligations.

Adding an aging specialist is “a great idea” for an RIA, but it’s not necessarily affordable for all firms in a channel of the industry that still mainly consists of smaller outfitsaccording to Leila Shaver, founder of compliance firm My RIA AttorneyAs a securities lawyer whose firm guides RIAs through their regulatory requirements, Shaver often reminds firms that it’s important to consider who has access to their clients’ information, whether there’s a “new person” who has become involved in a client’s finances, and to watch for unusual activity in their accounts, she said in an email.

“Many of these issues occur in older clients because of the increased incidence of dementia and other cognitive decline, and also an increased dependency on others to perform routine activities,” Shaver said. “It is always best to get trusted contact information on file for the client as soon as possible. It is important to include those trusted contacts more frequently as the client ages.”

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Companies that can’t hire aging experts themselves should, Shaver said, at the very least “continuously educate their team” and reach out to the client’s other service providers, such as their accountant and attorneys who specialize in estate planning, to discuss any concerns.

Advisors, RIAs or clients who can appoint a specialist in elderly care can do so via the Association for elderly careGarbow noted.

“It’s an art to talk to people, understand what their challenges are and then move on to problem solving,” she said. “I like to explain what I’ve done in my career because I’m a problem solver.”

Such an answer for elderly clients or their relatives can come in the form of long-term care insurancewho wear a high cost, but can provide essential medical services and home care.

Because “insurance is an important part of a good financial plan,” GYL Financial advisors “work with clients to make sure they understand the options they need to consider and to help them evaluate the options that are available for long-term care insurance,” Brier said. “We don’t look at it in a vacuum. A true fiduciary-driven financial plan needs to make sure there are no gaps.”

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Even if clients have an LTC policy, they may want to use it and find it difficult to navigate the process, Garbow said. He noted that it can be a “daunting process for anyone, let alone an elderly person who is unwell.”

These factors may explain why Garbow’s work for the firm is applicable to wealth management clients of all ages.

“My background is in clinical social work,” she said. “We used to call ourselves geriatric managers, and that was a term that most older people didn’t like. I don’t just work with very old people. I work with people of all ages, honestly, who may have tragic things happen to them and need care.”