The Hottest New Market for Your Practice

A growing number of Americans in their prime earning years are finding themselves faced with a financial obligation they may not have thought they would be responsible for: supporting their aging parents in retirement.

Almost one-third of all Americans with a parent older than 65 told the Pew Research Center they have given a parent financial support in the past 12 months and 72 percent of those said the money went to ongoing expenses.

It’s a consequence of the “silver tsunami” of 10,000 retirees a day and it represents an opportunity for insurance agents and financial advisors who can help these clients find ways to support their parents.

For agents and advisors who have based their practices on marketing and selling products to clients in their 40s and 50s, this can be another opportunity to explore their needs and a way to connect with them as a resource they might not know they have.

The sobering fact of retirement is that as many as 70 percent of those older than 65 will need some kind of long-term care during their lives. In many cities, Genworth estimates the expense for a private room in a nursing home approaches $100,000 a year, an expense that can quickly eat through retirement savings. When parents reach this stage of their lives, adult children can find themselves in a frenzied hunt for assets to pay for quality care. You can play an important role in finding and understanding assets the parents hold as well as products the children can use to generate assets they can use to pay for these costs.