Planners fall short in aged care provision
Despite financial planners saying for years that they were planning to increase their provision of aged care advice, they are still falling short in their offerings, according to Investment Trends.
The research house’s 2017 Retirement Planner Report found that over the last few years, 60 per cent of planners had been able to and did provide retirement advice and 80 per cent said they wanted to.
Planners anticipated an increase in advice provision in this area. While only six per cent of clients got aged care advice from their planners last year, planners said they would like to be talking to 15 per cent of clients about it in three years, amounting to a near-150 per cent increase.
Investment Trends research director, Recep Peker, noted that planners had shown the inclination to offer aged care advice previously though and had fallen short.
“For planners, aged care is an area where they’ve been intending to increase their provision of advice for a long time, but they haven’t gotten there,” he said.
The results of Investment Trends’ 2017 Retirement Income Report suggested that consumers are not turning to planners for assistance in the area, either.
The report found that only one third of Australians had looked for aged care information or intended to in the future, with just 10 per cent of those people looking to planners for advice. Most instead sought assistance from government services, doctors or family.
Peker said that one way planners could improve their offerings on the topic was by talking to clients about their parents’ aged care needs.
He said about 50 per cent of people planned to turn to their children or grandchildren for help with living activities as they aged, so it made sense to be talking to them about their parents’ plans.
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