What Advisors Have Taught Me

1. Check your beneficiaries and Power of Attorneys on a regular basis. This is not a “set and forget” activity. One advisor told me the story of having a client of his who became incapacitated. The client had no heirs and no close family members. While the client believed they had done everything well with a previous advisor, that advisor had passed away suddenly.

My advisor client inherited the client and tried to contact the POA only to find out that individual had been placed in a facility for Alzheimer’s patients. The advisor spent months trying to navigate a legal way to get support for his client because of this. Checking beneficiaries, POAs and making sure clients have things like Advance Directives or other medical documents to cover emergencies is important. Even if you have done it, continue to check these every two to three years to ensure the people named are still available and able to perform the necessary duties.

2. Understand how different types of insurance work. Many advisors are good at focusing on long-term care and life insurance, but how about mundane things like property & casualty and home insurance?

One advisor told me the story about a client she inherited that had a very expensive second home (and a third and fourth home too). The client opted to put insurance on the second home as if it was her primary residence. There was a fire in the second home and everything was destroyed. When the insurance company investigated and learned this was not the primary home, as insured, they denied the claim. It reminded me to focus on even the most basic and mundane pieces of a client’s financial life. When left unexplored, it could be the part that brings about disaster.

3. Think about the needs of your grown, but not fully on their own, children. An advisor recently was sharing how she always asks about POA for her client’s grown children (starting at age 18) who are no longer “children” but do not have spouses or significant others in their lives.

She tells the story of a client of hers who had a child, 19, traveling in Europe. They had an accident and had to come home in a difficult medical state. The “child” was technically an adult so the parents had no legal right to make decisions on his behalf.

Navigating the medical community without legal rights was a nightmare for these parents who were also dealing with the emotional difficulty of not knowing whether their child was going to be in a vegetative state forever. The advisor said it taught her to always inquire about children and how they would be legally represented post-18 years old should anything happen to them.

4. Engage the children as early as possible in the financial conversations. We know the research shows that many “next gens” will leave the current advisor once something happens to the patriarch or matriarch of the family. However, engaging children at a younger age helps them to learn more about important financial issues they need to plan for and prepare for early in life. These include how to manage credit cards, how to think about debt, and how to save for short- and long-term goals.

When I taught an undergraduate class on business, I would ask students if they understood how a car loan works — things like how many years to take out the loan, what the interest rate really translates to, etc. In all of the years of asking hundreds of students, I found two who knew what it all meant.

One of my advisors starts talking to his client’s children in middle school. He says that, often, the kids don’t know why he is talking to them, but he has found over time, as they get older and get jobs, they want to learn more. It has helped him deepen relationships with the parents and ensure the relationships stay in place for generations. He says he feels he is doing a good thing, too, by providing financial insights these kids don’t typically get in school.

5. Make sure to continually ask about outside assets, changes in family dynamics and new inflows. This one sounds so clear-cut, but I’ve lost count of the number of advisors I have who tell me they have had clients for many years only to find out key details much later. It could be that there are significant outside assets that haven’t been accounted for, or the parents have recently passed and have left a nice inheritance, or the client’s business sold unexpectedly.

It isn’t enough to ask “What’s new in your life?” or “Have there been any major transitions we should know about?” You need to ask the specifics like the following: “Some of our clients find it beneficial for us to look at their entire portfolio; what other assets should we be aware of?” or, “Many clients forget to tell us about transfer of assets from parents or other relatives; what should we know about your life circumstances?”

6. Be the “go-to” person on any topic the client might care about. One of my advisor clients told me a story about his client who purchased a second home and didn’t tell the advisor about it. The client had obtained a mortgage and was already in the throes of the purchase when the advisor learned of the transaction.

There were some problems with the builder, and it became a litigated situation for the client. The cost of litigation was staggering, and the client ended up losing the lawsuit because of unclear documentation. My advisor client was distraught that the client had not contacted him to talk about the purchase and the legalities involved.

I know many of these things may seem obvious to you as the attentive advisor you are, but I can say, having worked with advisors for decades, it’s not always so straightforward. Consider what clients you might want to do a review with and include just one area that might have been previously missing from your discussions. You might just strike gold!

Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry, in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. The firm has won the Wealthbriefing WealthTech award for Best Training Solution for 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. She is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).

She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.

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