From securing estate plans, to managing changes in the plan, to sitting at the bedside, one advisor explains her approach
What happens when illness derails a plan? Longevity risk has become a watchword for advisors as they build plans to ensure a client’s wealth will not outlive them, no matter how long they live. The tragedy of life, though, is that many clients won’t make it that far. Some clients will face terminal illness diagnoses in those golden years of their 50s and 60s, cutting short their retirement dreams.
When she hears of a client with a terminal diagnosis, Laurel Marie Hickey says, ‘it’s go time.’ The Senior Wealth Advisor & Senior Portfolio Manager at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth will get to her client’s bedside as soon as she can. Underpinned by an ethos of empathy and care for her clients, she works to ensure that plans are updated, wishes are clearly stated, and that her clients can live at least some of their dreams in the time they have left.
“It’s time for me to comfort them and it’s time for me to confirm the plans we have in place, even if we just spoke a month ago,” Hickey says. “The first thing I will do is go and meet that client wherever they are, home or hospital. And I’ll talk with them and their loved ones. In those meetings they always ask, ‘what do I do.’ They reached out to you to answer that question.”
Hickey says that often the ideal answer is ‘very little.’ If she’s already connected her clients with professionals who can lay the groundwork for estate plans and wills, then most of the key decisions and administrative work is already done. She notes one client who she had already introduced to a corporate executor and estate lawyer, when that client was unfortunately diagnosed with a terminal illness, she did not have to spend her final months filing paperwork.
For Hickey, the drive to plan proactively comes from a deeply personal place. Her parents had never talked about money or death but were each diagnosed with terminal cancer within a few weeks of one another. In the ‘scramble’ that followed, Hickey and her family did not shy away from those topics, they talked about everything, learned all they needed to know, and answered the question of ‘what do I do,’ for each part.
Sometimes other clients experience something of a scramble when they face a terminal diagnosis. In those moments Hickey’s job is to be as quick as possible. She never loses sight of how precious her clients’ time is and works to ensure that they have as much time as possible to simply be with their loved ones or live at least some of their dreams. Hickey mentions one client who had a playful streak and love of puzzles. She designed her will as a map of her apartment, full of treasures and easter eggs for her children to find. A parting piece of play that served as an act of remembrance for her children, rather than just a legal process.
Through the process of preparing for death, Hickey says that advisors must stay cognizant of their clients’ goals, dreams, and desires. If there was a dream trip they’d always talked about, finding a way that the client can make that trip happen — even if it requires hiring a support caregiver — can be a powerful way to serve those client dreams.
There will also be times when a difficult diagnosis causes a client to change their plan. Often those diagnoses are cancer-related, and clients may move heaven and earth to try and find treatment. That can sometimes mean significant expenses, relocation, and questions of whether they can afford this. “That’s when you have to go into the financial plan, ask what they talked about with their loved ones, and find out what the numbers say,” Hickey says. That can sometimes involve talking about spending money that had been earmarked for the next generation, or incurring major tax bills by withdrawing a large amount of money rapidly. Clarity and strategy are key to success if a client seeks one of these cures.
Because of time pressures, heightened emotions, and the prospect that terminal diagnoses might not always be terminal, these can be difficult situations for advisors to navigate. Hickey notes that some interactions may stay too long on the emotional side and the uncomfortable topics of estate and financial planning might be avoided. Other advisors might not have widened their relationship to the client’s family, such that when a diagnosis comes, they lack a trusted connection to help provide that family with answers and clarity. Avoiding mistakes at moments like these, she explains, involves asking hard questions and confronting the prospect of these issues before any diagnosis is made. This sort of work, Hickey explains, involves weaving the emotional with the financial, balancing heart and mind to offer clients the reassurance they seek from an advisor.
“When a client has a terminal illness, your service will be the most impactful thing you ever do for that client,” Hickey says. “That comes when you engage in a conversation with that client and follow it through all the way to the end. Don’t be afraid of those conversations, be inspired to make a difference.”
