5 planning topics advisors should bring up with clients in 2024

December 20, 2023 11:00 AM

Financial planning goals and new years resolutions 2024

The start of a new year brings hope for longer days and motivation to make big changes.

It's also the perfect time for advisors to broach deeper conversations with clients and ensure that they are on course to achieve their short-term and long-term goals.

Whether it's as simple as setting a budget or as complicated as recalibrating tax strategies and editing estate plans, there's no shortage of personal finance tasks for which an advisor can step in to offer valuable suggestions.

Based on our reporting this year, below are five conversations that go beyond retirement planning, which advisors may want to broach with clients as 2024 approaches.

Fintech

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Money and love

At its core, money is a tool that allows people to get closer to those they love. But love itself can be complicated, and having money can exacerbate the conflicts of any relationship.

Financial advisors have an opportunity to ask clients how those relationships are going, and help clients guard their financial interests from new romantic relationships that may turn abusive, plan weddings to ensure they don't go over budget, and navigate divorce — whether early on or later in life — so it doesn't devastate their life savings.

Read:

Ask an advisor: We just got married. Should we combine our finances?

Revisiting the estate plan

All kinds of life changes can prompt clients to feel differently about who they want to leave different parts of their estate to.

They may have a new child to include, someone to disinherit, a new charity they want to support or new wishes for their funerals.

Advisors can ask open-ended questions to get the client talking about who they consider most important to them, who they trust and who they want to distance themselves from, and who they wish to support — and then check in to see if the estate plan, as it's currently set up, reflects how they feel about each relationship.

Read:

Building customized and flexible estate plans in a changing political landscape

How's your health?

Humans are expected to keep living longer, but the problem is planning to pay for all that, according to longevity researchers at TIAA. Many seniors are already coming back from retirement to take on gig work or part-time jobs to supplement what Social Security can't cover.

HSAs can help defray those costs of old age, and thanks to their triple-tax advantages they offer many financial benefits both now and in the future. Read our guide to Medicare, as well, to open up conversations with clients on affording their future medical bills, and tips on financial planning for caregiving here and here.

Read:

How to prepare for the health care costs of retirement

How are the kids?

Is Junior doing well in school and planning to apply for a competitive four-year college? Does the client's adult married child need help with an expensive divorce in the making?

Many younger Americans are in need of help with managing competing financial priorities in the sea of information they can get now, and that's where an advisor can step in to provide value for potential clients, an Edward Jones study found.

It's critical to connect in small ways early on with heirs, too, so an advisor can stand to retain their business when those heirs someday come into the client's assets. That early connection-building can be as simple as congratulating a client's daughter on her first W-2 job as a teenager and asking if she needs help putting that paycheck to good use.

Read:

7 key tax questions about paying off student loan debt

Taxes and other blind spots

No matter how intelligent your clients may be, they're likely to have missed something in their financial plans. They might have forgotten to optimize for a new tax break this year, or might be about to incur a tax penalty through poor planning, or may be forgetting something as basic as creating an emergency fund for a rainy day event like a layoff.

The latter can be especially true for those new to wealth, such as athletes and entertainers. Sometimes a well-timed check-in about maximizing benefits at work or ensuring the essentials are there is all they need to get back on track.

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Employee benefits are changing. Here's what advisors should know