While your elderly clients are no longer accumulating assets, they still have complex needs of which you should be aware.

“There are probably more risks surrounding elderly clients than advisors realize,” says Robert Kruzel, vice-president and investment advisor with Richardson GMP Ltd. in Mississauga. “[Advisors] have to make sure that they’re being very careful in everything they do, from how they invest and how they make changes in the portfolio to how they give recommendations.”

Follow these six tips to provide your best service to your senior clients:

1. Show them the money
When in meetings with your clients, put them at ease about their retirement savings.

Many senior clients have a “high-water mark” that they want to see maintained at any cost, Kruzel says. However, with today’s low interest rates, that may simply not be possible. Instead, show your clients that even if their capital decreases slightly, they will not outlive their money.

2. Get to know them
To build strong relationships with your senior clients you need to think of them as more than account numbers.

You and your team may have a relationship with an elderly client that lasts decades, Kruzel says. Those clients want to know you and your team and you should want to know them, their spouses, their grandchildren and everything about them.

“Quite often our meetings with these types of clients,” says Kruzel, ” are 85% about their life.”

3. Keep the conversation open
When working with elderly clients, Kruzel says, you need to be comfortable talking about more than financial decisions.

Many senior clients ask their financial advisors for an opinion on whether they should sell their house, whether it’s best to buy or lease a new car or if they should go on a trip.

“Those decisions provide a lot of anxiety for seniors,” he says. “So, we’re often a sounding board for those types of things.”

4. Watch out for scams
Keep an eye on the accounts of elderly clients for any suspicious activity, Kruzel says. Seniors are particularly vulnerable to scams.

Kruzel gives the example of a client who was the target of a lottery scam. Kruzel and his team became suspicious when they noticed some irregular account-liquidation requests. They alerted family members and put an end to the fraudulent activity.

5. Focus on estate planning
For elderly clients, Kruzel says, estate planning is particularly important.

“People spend 85 years accumulating and building something,” he says, “and quite often they may spend only a few hours on what happens to that accumulated wealth.”

If you don’t have a strong understanding of estate planning, he says, it’s important that you partner with professionals who do.

6. Make it a family affair
Get to know your clients’ families to make the estate-planning process easier.

If you don’t involve family members in the estate planning process, Kruzel says, the children can take the estate to their own advisors and dismantle the plan you and your client created. That’s why it’s important for the entire family to be in agreement about what should happen with the estate when the client dies.