Tips for Financial Advisers Supporting Vulnerable Clients

The following is taken from our video series “A Conversation with…” as part of our Vulnerability Week, one of the key series in our annual Development Programme.

To watch this interview in full, click here.

My top tips for dealing with vulnerable clients…

it’s a difficult one to answer that, because obviously every vulnerability is different. One of the biggest things I’ve learnt is do a family tree, which might sound a bit weird but if you want to get to the real nitty-gritty of what happens in this person’s life, it’s a very easy thing to open a conversation.

To say “let’s talk about your family, tell me who’s in your family” and listen to them go through their children, their grandchildren, you’ll find a lot of information there about who doesn’t like who, who doesn’t trust who, who’s divorced and so on.

It’s always a very good starting point to do that, so that’d be one of my tips as to how you start your first meeting, to really get some knowledge of how that dynamic works.

That then leads onto who are the trusted relationships within that family group or outside that family group:

“Who is that trusted person who’s coming in with you and what’s their relationship with you?”
“How do you want that relationship to be in the future?”
“Do you want this person copied into reports?”,
“Do you want us to communicate with them on everything?”

It’s just establishing those boundaries really at the beginning.

The other thing, having worked through lockdown with vulnerable clients is being very conscious when you’re doing a Zoom type meeting of who else is there with the client. So you can just blatantly ask the question “are you on your own in the room?” People might say yes, but they might not be on their own in the room, so it’s things like checking whether the client is looking into the corner of the room.

Is somebody there, pulling their strings?

Because that’s important that you actually understand what is happening, and is somebody showing undue influence?

The other thing is to be aware of real danger points. If there’s something which you feel is financial abuse, who do you report it to? Is it the OPG?, is it the police?, is it social services? On all different levels, whether it’s physical, mental, whatever, do you know the agencies you should go to or the route you should go to try and help that person through that.

Definitely be prepared for more meetings, You have to be a very patient person when you’re dealing with some vulnerabilities. Be prepared for shorter meetings, be prepared for the way you speak in a much slower way, maybe using pictures of a house being sold for instance, then a picture of a bag of money, and then a picture of a care home for example, make sure that you’re using visual aids to actually help somebody to understand, make sure you go through it again and again and keep questioning the understanding of what you’re telling them.

Make sure all staff, everybody who works within your business is completely on top of vulnerability in any form. It is an essential life skill.

Everybody should be able to recognise it and know how to react to it, but it’s really, really important that you actually make sure everybody is trained and understands how they should react in that situation.

I think the other thing is you have to listen very carefully, listen for signals, listen to what’s actually being said, not the words themselves but maybe the tone of voice. Really take in what that person’s trying to convey to you and what I would definitely advise, is to try and see that person on their own in the room. What I mean is to send the son or the daughter out.

I’ve done it many times, nobody’s ever offended by it, say “can I just have a few minutes with your mum on her own?” just so you can actually understand whether she is being unduly influenced by somebody else.

And my biggest thing is to say enjoy it, it’s a huge privilege to be able to deal with people who are vulnerable, and to be able to help them through that time if they’re going to come out of it at the other end, or whether it’s a long-term vulnerability is – treat it as a privilege, because it is.

Jane Bligh
Clear Cut Financial Planning

The following is taken from our video series “A Conversation with…” to watch this interview in full, click here.