Your Financial Advisers Give Support on More Than Just Money

AI chatbots reportedly are coming after the role of financial adviser but good luck, advisers say.

Financial advisers aren’t just dispensing help on investments and padding a nest egg anymore. Financial advisers now also act as friend, confidant and sometimes daily assistant to help clients manage their lives and reduce their stress. They work so clients can live their best lives now and in the future.

Different services to meet clients’ various needs include: ideas to minimize taxes during and after your lifetime; referrals to, and work with, estate planning attorneys to create wills and trusts for kids and grandkids; suggesting trust companies that can offer childless people and couples medical and financial powers of attorney; the ability to act as executor and trustee of the estate; and sometimes, even offering caregiving guidance as well as budgeting and spending tips.

“Going back 25 years, the business was transactional — mainly investments or insurance transactions,” said Brian Leitner, managing director of wealth solutions at national financial services firm Mariner, which offers help to clients coping with the pressures of caring for aging parents, disabled kids and other complex health-related issues. “Now, it’s holistic.”

Why Is the Financial Adviser Role Expanding?

Financial advisers are uniquely positioned to help clients address major life changes, they say. Advisers know their clients’ fears, dreams and hopes for themselves and the people around them, their relationships and what’s most important to them because they’re the ones helping them fund and realize their goals.

It’s a very different role from decades ago when Mike McCracken, president and founder of Wealth Guide Financial, was 14 years old and learning to invest. “I used my dad’s broker and would buy stock,” he said. “He never once asked what are you saving for and why? So, he’d put me in the stock I was interested in, but if wanted to buy a bike next week, that would have been a terrible thing to do” because McCracken’s money would have been tied up in stocks.

“As I became more involved in my practice, I began to wear dual hats,” McCracken said. “As a fiduciary, I’m doing what’s best for my client, not just what’s suitable so, I need to know is it the best? If I offer advice, it affects the rest of their lives.”

Nowadays, financial advisers ask the tough questions, digging deeper to make sure your needs and wants are appropriately met.

“Financial planning often sits at the intersection of health, family relationships, and major life decisions,” Leitner said.

What Can Financial Advisers Help With?

In addition to how to invest money, advisers can often make tax, charitable giving, and trusts and estate planning suggestions even if they may not be able to draw up the legal documents themselves. You’ll need a lawyer for that.

Some advisers also serve as everyday counselors who can help you budget and figure out how to purchase almost anything. “Help buying a car is nothing new to us,” Leitner said. “Anytime there’s a financial transaction, we want to know.”

McCracken said he regularly gets calls about whether or how to pay off a truck or how to afford a second home. He said he’ll comb through a client’s finances, consider their desired lifestyle and goals, run the numbers and find ways his clients can achieve what they want and when.

“Financial stuff? You’re welcome to call me anytime,” he said.

Mariner has taken service a step further into the personal realm with help navigating the complexities of healthcare and long-term care. Mariner recently announced a partnership with Cariloop, a caregiving support platform that provides people with professional coaching, caregiving tools, and a vetted network of providers to help families with aging parents, disabled children and other complex caregiving scenarios.

Offering caregiving support may seem odd for a financial advising firm, but more than 63 million Americans (nearly one in four adults) are caregivers, and nearly one in three support both a parent and a child, AARP said.

Related decisions directly affect retirement planning, estate planning and long-term financial security. So, more clients are turning to financial advisers for guidance through these stressful moments, said Leitner, whose own “dad’s health isn’t great and my mom’s the caregiver.”

“Adoption rates have surpassed expectations, and testimonials bring tears to your eyes,” he said. “We have become vulnerable, and what is going on personally in our lives — special needs child, mom and dad — are stressors.”

With Cariloop, Mariner’s employees and clients can find support. Cariloop shoulders some of the burdens, such as researching companies that accept your insurance, finding vetted caregivers, calling Medicare or long-term care insurance companies on your behalf or coaching you through finding the right Individualized Education Program for a disabled dependent.

“Today’s advisers show up for clients in the moments that matter most,” said Marty Bicknell, Mariner’s chief executive and president.

Medora Lee is a money, markets and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY.