Advisers should focus on helping clients realistically get to the bottom of their financial stresses and develop and implement and a plan that enables them to maintain their ‘financial wellbeing’ smile, according to Marco Turrent, head of financial wellbeing at Cognacity.
Ahead of the Association of Medical Insurers & Intermediaries’ annual summit, Turrent told Health & Protection that financial wellbeing is not about creating perfect financial statements but eliminating financial stress as negative emotions arise from money related issues.
Turrent describes the journey from financial stress to financial wellbeing as the ‘financial wellbeing smile’, which is a framework covering the stages individuals go through to change habits and behaviours.
In order to achieve this, Turrent told Health & Protection advisers should focus on:
- Helping clients get a realistic evaluation of the problem behind their financial stress
- Helping put in place a plan that directly addresses the situation they are now aware of
- Helping them implement and maintain the plan
- Ensuring they make the necessary psychological adjustments, so they continue evaluating their situation in a positive way.
“Providers of financial services and products are in a perfect position to help people reduce financial stress, but they need to identify the emotions their products deal with and be willing to embark on a long-term journey with the clients,” Turrent said.
“If providers of financial services and products are serious about delivering financial wellbeing, they need to walk their clients through each and every stage and not see their services and products as a one-off purchase,” he concluded.