Advisers must focus on health and empathy in the new normal

During the current COVID-19 crisis, clients of financial advisers are more focused than ever on an array of  planning and advice issues, from staples like communication with advisers and keeping an eye on their overall health to the less spoken issue of an adviser’s ability to maintain his or her practice during a public health crisis.

For advisers to successfully navigate a time of unprecedented market dives and rebounds, with the pandemic looming over the well-being of their families, employees and clients, they better get used to discussing a wider and perhaps more personal array of issues than they likely have in the past.

Expressing such empathy and understanding, and using virtual tools like Zoom to hold meetings, is a big part of what it takes to be an adviser in the so-called “new normal” time of financial advice.  

According to an industry panel held online last Tuesday by InvestmentNews and titled “Navigating 2020: The New Normal,” advisers who communicate and focus on client’s financial plans and overall health will succeed as the advice industry adjust broadly to this environment, broadly described as the new normal.

“This is a biological crisis,” said Nela Richardson, principal and investment strategist, Edward Jones. “This is not business as usual. This is business with a pandemic.”

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“We’re in a different paradigm right now,” said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer and director of research, Cetera Investment Management, adding that such times demand that firms and advisers deliver more than standard fare, such as investment research. “It’s really [about] helping the end clients.”

More than ever, advisers must heed clients’ emotional states, not always a focus in the past.

“Clients appreciate hearing from their financial advisers right now more than they ever have than during the downturns of the last three decades,” said Carolyn Armitage, managing director, Echelon Partners. “This time, people are not only fearful for their jobs and nest eggs, as in the past, but they are also fearful for their health and safety. Advisers might want to focus on their clients’ health and emotional well-being.”

“Clients can feel fearful, alone and confused and filled with anxiety,” Armitage said. “And so financial advisers have that ability to be the calm and comforting voice, checking in on clients and showing empathy for what they are going through in a time of need. It’s greatly appreciated.”

This means that financial advisers more than ever need to be on their toes and willing to adapt to each clients’ current predicament and state of mind.

“It’s not one size fits all,” said Paul LaPiana, head of product, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.

LaPiana said key themes for advisers and clients are safety, access to medical care, and concerns around friends and family that are in high-risk for COVID-19 groups and categories. More standard issues include risk associated with long-term financial security.

Other anxious questions facing clients are staples of financial planning, he said, and include: Will clients be able to retire? Are they saving enough? And, if the economy pulls back from its current rebound and there is a market correction, what does that mean for clients’ long-term financial plan?