Clients Who Lose a Spouse Require Both Empathy and Skill

According to a new Merrill Lynch/Age Wave Study, nationwide 53% of widows did not financially prepare for when their spouse passed away. Dan 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.

Another study from Merrill Lynch found that among widows, four-in-10 of them found 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, a financial advisor at 1650 Wealth Management based in Lauderdale by the Sea, Florida.

Unlike older clients that have never been married or perpetual bachelors, widows and widowers are in mourning for their loved one. “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.

“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.

See Juliette Fairley, Clients Who Lose a Spouse Require Both Empathy and Skill, Financial Advisor, September 11, 2018.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.