How to start the conversation? Not at a table groaning with holiday dishes after three glasses of wine, advises Hillary Illick, a life coach at Life Matters in Cambridge, Mass. (Illick is also a consultant to Cogniscient, a firm focused on issues surrounding financial management and cognitive decline. It has built a software platform for use in the financial services industry.) Find the right time and place and frame the conversation as being for the whole family’s well-being, as insurance to protect parents in retirement, Illick said.
“The discussion is that we don’t want to invade your privacy—we really don’t want to know your day-do-day spending—but we want to protect you and your estate in retirement,” she said. By making it clear you don’t want to be involved in the daily finances—at least until you really need to be—you remove a threat.
“The surprise in the survey,” said Suzanne Schmitt, Fidelity’s vice president of Family Engagement, “was just how important the premium was for older people on managing their day-to-day money, and how resistant people were to getting professional help or help from loved ones with that.”
Schmitt suggests families focus at first on long-term issues, like investments and estate planning, and making sure all beneficiaries are designated on all accounts, that there is a current and complete will, a health-care proxy, and a living will.
Some of the suggested language on web sites for starting these conversations can feel trite or forced. Illick suggests starting by “communicating about the communication.” You want to manage expectations and just say, “I’m going to have a discussion that’s kind of delicate and may be difficult for all of us. When is a good time?”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.