‘You need to be raising it’: financial planners urged

Speaking at the recent SMSF Association Technical Summit, Louise Biti, Director of Aged Care Steps, said advisers need to be aware not just of the financial implications of ageing clients, but also be proactive in protecting their clients’ interests from things such as elder abuse.

“The way we think about retirement has changed. We now have much longer retirements to think about and the challenges and expenses that come with that,” she said.

“Chances are for most of us, we’re not going to be fit, healthy, active, and then drop dead. For most of us, we will have a period of frailty that might be days, weeks, months, years. We need to think about that and have contingency plans in place.”

Biti said life expectancy is now around 88 years and retirement can be broken into three phases – half of the retirement years is considered active retirement, the next phase is a quieter period which is where clients need to start thinking about support needs, and finally, the frailty years where there still may be some independence but support needs are higher.