As the coronavirus crisis places extra burden on savers to start planning for their later life care, advisers have been urged to specialise in this area to keep up with the demand.
Speaking on the FTAdviser Podcast this week, Tracy Crookes, adviser at Quilter Private Client Advisers, said IFAs need to start becoming specialised as the ongoing Covid crisis and ageing population will see more people start to think about how they can plan for future care costs.
Ms Crookes said: “Care planning is going to become a bigger need going forward.
“We are at the stage now where clients have got more investable assets than they have had in the past, but as this goes down through the generations those investments are going to be eroded, some of which will be through care costs.
“So where the younger generation feel they may inherit assets that will not necessarily happen if more people are having to use investments to fund care.
“More [advisers] will become more specialised as it's going to become more and more of an issue.”
Also appearing on the podcast, Graham Duffy, care specialist at Just Group, agreed this was going to become an issue and explained how the firm currently runs training courses to help IFAs get the qualifications they need to advise in this space.
Mr Duffy said: “There are very few advisers who advise purely on care and do nothing else because it is difficult to make a decent living out of this.
“If you are going to specialise you need that transition and we encourage advisers to get qualifications so they are ready if their clients come to them with concerns over care costs.
“With the ageing population this is going to happen more and more.”
Mr Duffy added the profession needs “confident and competent” advisers in the care space to ensure that clients are being made aware of all their options and to ensure they maximise what they are entitled to from the state.
To listen to the full podcast click on the link above. FTAdviser's podcasts are available on Acast and are also available to download on iTunes and Spotify.
amy.austin@ft.com
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