Gallup Poll; Women Just Might End Up Ruling the All of the Assets

Gallup's latest poll on American's biggest financial concern came out this week & with no surprise the number one concern was "running out of money".

The reason this is no surprise is because so much media attention has been placed on this very subject. It seems that every financial commercial that is aired has in some way touched on this issue while being very vague on how to solve it. Remember the ING commercial "What is your number” where people were walking around with a series of numbers that represented what they needed in retirement?  This was a great example of a company trying to gain attention by focusing on a hot topic but at the end of the day the viewer is left wondering what to do next.

Although running out of money is a huge enigma to the financial services industry the second issue in the poll may be even bigger.  It may come as a huge shock to the advisors out there trying to service their clients that addressing health care costs cost for investors is once again near the top of the list.  Time and again this issue has reared its ugly head.  Whether through polls conducted by industry trade organizations such as LIMRA or internal studies in companies such as Merrill Lynch and Fidelity the results continue to point toward this concern.

With such a grave concern continuing to pop up you would think that solutions would be surfacing by now but we have yet to see a major financial institution even broach the subject. The problem is so pressing for women that it is essentially running in a dead heat with “running out of money” as it is only behind by one percentage point.  One would think that while firm after firm continues to fight over this demographic with “women and investing” seminars that some institution, somewhere, would have slipped a slide or two into a presentation by now.  But is just hasn’t happened.

It’s high time that Financial Advisors stand up and take notice to this. Women tend to outlive their male counterparts and with a population that is quickly aging, 10,000 people turning 65 each day for the next 20 years, who will end up in the long run controlling the most assets?

Women.

And what are their concerns?

1. Enough cash, which they will have from proper estate planning and by outliving their spouse.
2. Health Care, which again, no major financial institution has bothered to touch on with exception to Fidelity.

Who are they going to have around advising them on what to do with their investments?

The Financial Planners who best help solve these concerns for them, those that understand Health Care and Medicare and what they will ultimately cost them.

Think it’s not possible, just look to BofA’s own Sallie Krawcheck and her comments on”Busting Wealth Management Myths, Warns About Realities”.  Here is a taste of what she said:

Reality Number One: “Tomorrow’s client will look very different, and the industry is not prepared.” There is an “increasing disparity--in fact, a quite glaring disparity--between current and prospective clients and the advisors who serve them,” she said.

While more than eight of 10 advisors today are male, and their average client is a 63-year-old white man, Krawcheck continued, “many people are surprised to learn that women hold more than half the nation’s wealth, comprise more than half of the workforce, are increasingly entrepreneurial, and women are also outliving men by an average of five to seven years.”

Women, she said, “tell us they do not feel well-served by the wealth management industry, and that the relationship with the advisor is typically with the husband, which is why, when the husband dies, and the assets go to the wife, the typical advisor keeps those assets only 46% of the time.”

For the full report from Gallup please click here & for more information on HealthView Services or on how to calculate what your expected Health Care Costs will be please click here.

The topic of Health Care is starting to garner more and more attention with each passing day and right now luckily HealthView Service's RetireMark is one of the only tools in the market today to help with this complex issue.