Advising Women Through the Seasons of Their Lives

Women manage their households, their careers and their money. But sometimes their lives don’t go as expected. That’s when Katie Warchol comes in.

Warchol is an Edward Jones financial advisor in Clayton, Mo. She specializes in working with “women whose lives may not have turned out quite the way they thought they would.

“Whether they’re divorced, widowed, never married, didn’t have the family that they thought they would have — because that’s me and that’s also my assistant,” she said. “This is a topic near and dear to our hearts. These are the type of women and the type of clients we like to serve.”

Warchol is one of many advisors who believe financial professionals must serve women throughout all the seasons of their lives – not just when they find themselves in a financial crisis or when they’re ready to begin retirement planning.

To understand a woman’s financial needs, an advisor must understand “where she’s coming from,” Warchol said.

“Women are less likely to make financial course corrections than their male counterparts. They’re less likely to have paid down debt, they’re less likely to have had a financial plan or a financial budget, they’re less likely to have purchased an annuity or life insurance or long-term care insurance or to seek financial advice,” she said.

Warchol said she believes the first way advisors must serve women “is to understand that sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way we planned.” 

“We also need to listen to women’s unique stories,” she said. Women are interested in investing, Warchol said, but they are more interested in “what is our money doing for us in our world?”

Warchol said she believes the financial services industry must recognize that women have different protection needs throughout their lifetimes. 

“Women need help protecting themselves because we may end up being the divorced woman, the never-married woman, the widowed woman, so we must learn how to protect not only ourselves but our families,” she said. “What is also unique about serving women is that when you serve women, you’re also protecting their families — their children, their spouses and even their parents.” 

Warchol’s clients range from women in their 20s who are starting their careers and beginning to accumulate wealth to women in their 90s who want to protect their assets for the remainder of their lives. 

“We want to serve women throughout their life span, to help them be successful and take care of themselves,” she said. “It has to start early. We love to get female clients as early as we can to provide education, provide support and then help them grow throughout their lifetime and their different needs and different life stages.”

Warchol said it can be difficult for a woman to take that first step and seek advice. 

“They’re often scared and intimidated,” she said. “An advisor who can break things down, keep it simple, and be empathetic and caring will help a woman feel comfortable and then confident so that she can have that financial plan to achieve her goals and dreams.”

Relationships and confidence change over time

Women are motivated by their immediate financial needs. But women’s relationships with money change as their relationship status changes over time, according to Equitable, which released a study on the impact of relationships on women’s finances earlier this year.

The study showed women experience challenges and changes in their level of engagement with their finances throughout the course of their lives. Notable shifts occur as their relationship status moves through being single (never been married), married or uncoupled (divorced or widowed).

In addition, the study showed that specific pivot points, such as divorce or becoming a parent, tend to spark women’s increased involvement in their finances. Women who work with a financial professional report increased confidence about managing their finances, have higher levels of engagement and are able to focus on their long-term financial goals.

The study showed that when married women become uncoupled — whether through divorce or becoming widowed — their financial confidence plummets dramatically. While 42% of married women feel confident about reaching their financial goals, that number drops to 35% and 29%, respectively, for women who are divorced and widowed. Among never-married women, 37% feel confident about reaching their goals.

Nearly half of divorced women (46%) and most widowed women (61%) feel farther away from achieving their financial goals as a direct result of becoming uncoupled. That effect is strongest in younger women who are widowed. Among millennial widows, 81% feel farther away from their goals, compared to 64% of Generation X widows and 54% of baby boomer widows.

The study showed major life changes, including divorce and widowhood — and the shifts in women’s financial confidence that can accompany those changes — often prompt women to take a more proactive approach to their financial wellness. Other common reasons women become more involved in managing their finances are an increase in income, becoming a parent and considering retirement.

None of these findings came as much of a surprise to Jody D’Agostini, an Equitable financial advisor and senior partner with The Falcon Financial Group in Morristown, N.J.   

“These findings were a validation of what I see in my practice,” she said. D’Agostini said that about 80% of her clients are women. “Holistic financial planning is the core of my business. And that means meeting women where they are.”

No matter a woman’s relationship status, all women have their individual financial concerns, she said. “You have to be mindful of what those concerns might be and pay special attention to make sure you put your client at ease and make a plan around those concerns.”

The study, she said, “did a fine job of pointing out what thought bubble is on everyone’s head when they come to see you that sometimes we don’t uncover unless we probe a little bit more.”

“I work with a lot of divorced women, and the fear is ‘Am I going to end up living out of my car?’ Or a woman who is widowed fears she will be out on the street, she’ll outlive her resources. When you know someone is coming in with those fears, you can work around that.”

D’Agostini said many of her widowed clients did some financial planning with their husbands. But their husbands’ death changed those plans.

“Many widows want to support what their husband had in place,” she said. “But sometimes that planning was for them as a couple. Now that the husband is gone, everything has changed. Maybe his pension went away. Now they have only one Social Security benefit instead of two. You must be mindful about women’s insecurity over those issues and reassure them as you make new plans and help them move on.”

D’Agostini said she works with many female clients who are in a state of transition, “because that’s when people need planning.”

“This is the point when people say, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know about my finances or how we create income from what I have. Will my money last? Will I have to get a job? Should I keep my home?’ They have a lot of decisions ahead of them, and we help them make those decisions. And it’s more of a data-driven decision based on the financial plan they helped create with me.”

D’Agostini said an advisor who wants to work with women must create a safe space for them to voice their concerns.

“The No. 1 thing you must do is build trust,” she said. “Many times, the planning process helps develop that trust because we get to know each other well as we develop the plan. I make sure I hear them, and I make sure I’m getting buy-in from them.”

The second thing advisors must do to become a safe space, she said, is to maintain confidentiality.

“I let people know I’m a fiduciary and explain what that is, and then I really reinforce confidentiality,” she said. “I let them know that anything we say here is between the two of us, and I think that goes a long way in making clients feel comfortable.”

A plan leads to confidence

Often, women may have different thoughts and behaviors around money than most men do. 

“But women drive better outcomes than men do,” said Connie Weaver, Equitable’s chief marketing officer.

However, she said in order to drive those better outcomes, “women must feel included, and they have to trust and be part of the solution.

“But once women get a plan, they’re confident,” she said. “Our study showed that more than two-thirds of women, once they start working with an advisor, feel more financially confident in making the decisions they need to make. And that’s a powerful statistic. As advisors and women come together, there’s a sea change in the levels of confidence and trust.”

Women are natural problem solvers who want advice, Weaver said. 

“Our study showed that women aren’t just focused on asset accumulation. They’re looking for growth as well as protection.”

Women also tend to think of everyone but themselves, she said. 

“Women think about the big picture. They think about their kids, they think about their parents, they think about everybody else but themselves. So if an advisor can meet a woman where she is and start the dialogue, they can come up with a holistic life plan.”

The industry must “take the intimidation factor away for women” by starting to engage with them at younger ages, Weaver said.

“Women will reach out and start to look for advice when they get that first big promotion — when they’re in their late 20s or early 30s — when they go from living paycheck to paycheck to actually having money to invest.” 

She said advisors who focus on engaging with women, “whether it’s in early adulthood, midlife or later in life, will separate themselves from the average players in the long term.”

Helping widows 

Megan Kopka had been a financial planner for a number of years when her husband was diagnosed with ALS and died four years later, leaving her widowed at age 38 with teenage children. Kopka took her experience and used it to create her own firm, Kopka Financial, in Wilmington, N.C.

“Widowhood touches everything,” she said. “Everything is broken, everything is different.”

Four years after her husband’s death, Kopka was inspired to begin working with widows and caregivers. She serves clients of all ages.

“I want to build a world of compassionate advisors,” she said. “Compassionate means you have empathy, the ability to hold space and listen. Compassion takes it a step above empathy, where you have the ability to help.”

Kopka said she believes widows must hire two professionals immediately after their husband’s death — a grief counselor and a Certified Financial Planner. 

“You need professional financial help because your income sources have changed, your tax status will change, your insurances have likely changed and you need to update beneficiaries,” she said. “At some point as you are going through the things you need to do, you will come up against something that’s super hard, and you will need someone in your corner.”

Kopka also uses her experience as her husband’s caregiver prior to his death to work with female caregivers.

“I see two things happening in caregiving when a financial planner gets involved,” she said. “The caregiver always wants to make sure that they have enough money for their loved one to have the best care possible. And the patient wants to make sure that their wife or spouse is well taken care of in the future.”

Caregivers face a lot of unknowns and Kopka said she helps them answer some big questions.

“What do you do when you have large, near-term medical costs that you’re unsure of coupled with a timeline that you might be unsure of? What’s the best way to position assets now so that they last for the rest of your life?” 

Kopka said that advisors who want to serve widows should get involved with organizations such as the Modern Widows Club to better understand the widow experience.

“Most widows want to become empowered about their finances,” she said. “If you work with a widow, you will be working with someone who is coming back from tragedy and trying to triumph. They are moving out of crisis into living again — and living on their own this time. They want to know whether they have enough money to live the lifestyle they have now. If they don’t, you need to let them know. Nobody wants to hear about decreasing their current standard of living, but you’re exacerbating a bad situation if you can’t deliver that information.”

Widows need a support system, Kopka said, and an advisor can be a trusted part of that system. 

“Introducing your widowed client to another widow is not unusual at all. And widows find each other, we get paired up together. When I was a caregiver, I was paired up with a lot of ALS widows. It is so natural for people who are in your circle to know other people in similar circumstances. Be part of that network to get support for your widowed clients.” 

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected].