5 Tips to Find a Financial Advisor for Seniors
Americans generally don’t score well when it comes to financial literacy. People of all ages struggle with finding the right mix of investing, saving and spending; but seniors face a number of unique issues when it comes to managing their finances well.
You have to figure out how to live comfortably on your retirement savings and social security. You have to think about the long-term expenses of aging in place and senior care. Many seniors will also experience dementia or memory issues that make it increasingly difficult to stay on top of their finances – something it’s better to prepare for long before you reach that point.
For many families, money issues like these are a lot to figure out on your own. Working with a financial advisor can help you create a long-term financial plan and break down how to handle your spending each month to achieve it. But it’s important to find a financial advisor that’s ethical, knowledgeable and able to help you with your particular situation.
Here are a few tips to find someone that checks all those boxes:
1. Ask for referrals.
A recommendation from someone you know is always a strong place to start when finding someone for just about any need. Ask around to see if you have friends and family who have worked with financial advisors before. If you’re on social media, ask for recommendations there.
Different advisors have different specialties, so don’t assume off the bat all the recommendations you receive will be a good fit. If people offer up suggestions, go a little deeper and ask them about their particular experience with that financial advisor to learn more, and do some Googling to see what their website and reviews can tell you.
2. Check industry databases.
If asking around didn’t get you a list of good options, have no fear. There are a few professional databases you can search to find qualified financial planners in your area:
- Certified Financial Planners (CFP): This directory has listings for Certified Financial Planners. It allows you to limit the results by specialties including Elder Care, Retirement Income Management and Retirement Planning, and you can limit results to fee-only professionals here as well.
- Financial Planning Association (FPA): This is a listing of everyone with Certified Financial Planner status that’s a member of the Financial Planning Association. After putting in your location information, you can narrow your results based on specialty (including Life Planning and Retirement) and you can limit your results to fee-only professionals (recommended for reasons explained in #3).
- National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA): This is a listing of fee-only financial advisors that are members of the association. They also offer filters based on specialties.
If you’re considering recommendations you got from friends, it’s worth running the names through these directories so you can verify if they’re certified and make sure they’re legitimate.
3. Make sure they’re a fiduciary.
Fiduciaries are legally required to work in the best interests of their clients. Other financial advisors aren’t necessarily fraudulent, but they make at least some of their money by recommending specific products from banks and insurance companies that pay them for the recommendation. It’s difficult for them to be 100% sure if they’re suggesting something that’s truly the best option for you, or if they’re just getting paid to say that.
For that reason, a fiduciary is the way to go. You can narrow your search down to just fiduciaries by looking for financial advisors that say they’re “fee-only” or that show up in the NAPFA search above.
4. Don’t put too much trust in titles.
Not all certifications are equal. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has found over 50 fake or misleading credentials that target seniors specifically. Knowing the difference between the legitimate titles and the ones that just sound good is hard for anyone to do though.
You can do a quick search for certifications claimed by a financial advisor in Paladin’s credential checker to learn if they’re legitimate and what they can actually tell you about a person’s experience and knowledge.
5. Meet in person.
Any search for the right financial advisor has to include this step. Use the tips above to determine a few good possibilities (and weed out those that aren’t a good fit) and then set up a few appointments to talk.
Come prepared with details about your financial situation, your long-term goals and any questions you have.
Finding a good financial advisor can be tricky, but once you do, you’ll have a clearer picture of how to stay financially healthy throughout your senior years. Take some time to do your research and make sure you’re choosing someone who’s qualified and will put your needs first.
Kristen Hicks
Kristen Hicks is an Austin-based copywriter and lifelong student with an ongoing curiousity to learn and explore new things. She turns that interest to researching and exploring subjects helpful to seniors and their families for SeniorAdvisor.com.
10 Comments
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I agree with you that financial planning is very important in the senior years as seniors may need to set budgets and then spend accordingly. Your suggestions will surely help seniors and family members hire a good financial planner. Thanks for these amazing suggestions.
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I like how you suggest taking the time to find a financial planner based off referrals from people you know. This would definitely help me since I would like to hire someone to help me get a hold of my finances. I’d feel a lot more trusting of a financial planner if they were referred to me by someone I know.
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I agree! It can be tricky when finding the right financial advisors especially for the senior. Following these steps mentioned from above can help us choose the right financial planners. And we don’t need to rush for it, we can take our time to do more research and make sure you’re choosing someone who’s qualified for our financial planning.
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Thank you for all this great information about choosing a financial planner! My parents have been thinking about their retirement for a long time now, but weren’t sure how to do it. It makes sense that you would want to set appointments to meet up with them in the end.
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I really like what you said about how referrals from a trusted person is a great way to start your search for a financial planner. My parents are about to retire next year, and they really need some help getting their investments in order to ensure comfy retirement years. I would think that they have colleagues that have retired way earlier than them, so I will be sure to advise them to ask around their friends for referrals for the financial planner that they can use.
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I had never heard of the term fiduciaries before, but it makes a lot of sense that you’d want to make sure that the planner is one of them. After all, when you’re planning for something like retirement then you’ll want the planner that you hire to have your best interest in mind. That way you can make sure that you are getting the best financial advice possible for your retirement.
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My parents are looking for financial planning services right now. I think it is interesting that seniors have different financial planners than most. I do agree that their needs are different since they are focusing more on the dividend.
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It’s great you elaborated on the importance of planning for financial security as you get older, especially when social security and retirement savings are involved since this is money you’ve saved for years that you’ll be spending for the rest of your days. One important thing to keep in mind is asking for recommendations from someone you know when you start looking for an advisor, especially if they have different fields of expertise. Now that I know what to look out for when potentially planning for the future, I can at least keep an open mind when looking for a financial adviser for my later years in life.
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I found it interesting that you state that the best adviser will be a fiduciary. My parents are planning to retire next year, so I have been looking into the best way to plan their finances over the rest of their lives. I will keep this in mind while I am looking for a retirement planning advisor that can help them.
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Thanks for these tips on how to find a good financial planner. I agree that you want to check their referrals first. My husband and I are looking for a financial planner, so we’ll have to check their referrals.
