Later life financial planning and lending isn’t all about cruises, garden extensions and setting up the grandkids – for your clients it can and should be much more.

It should be planning for the unforeseen, making financial contingency plans, as well as the odd bucket list splurge.

Talking to your clients about what financial shape they are in for retirement should be a given for any financial advisor. What do your clients have in place – apart from the obligatory (for most) pension – if things don’t go to plan? What are they planning to do after they finish work? What if they fall ill and have to be cared for?

Recent research we carried out here at Hodge found that a third (33%) of people they questioned have made financial plans for long-term care.

Now this stat can be seen as a positive – a third of people have thought about and planned for long term care, that’s encouraging.

Or, two thirds have no plans and if they find themselves, or their partner, needing long term care, how will they fund that? Where will the money come from and will they be able to afford it?

More encouraging news is that more than half (55%) of those questioned said they are keen to learn more about money and finances – so that appetite is there for people to learn about how to manage their money. Yet only 27% always seek professional advice before making a financial decision.

As an industry we have a challenge here, therefore. We have a gap in the market with people who are living longer and need to consider the financial implications of long term care and later life finances, are keen to learn more, yet don’t come to us as advisors, brokers and intermediaries, to make those decisions.

What we believe we are seeing from our research, and we asked 700 people, is that many people in the later life category, so those that are over 50, think retirement is a long way off and there are often many other demands financially to deal with, like marriages and grandchildren.

We know that many people over 50 are still enjoying life. They don’t feel the need to slow down, to think ahead, because they are still actively working and don’t consider Later Life products to be relevant to them.

Interestingly, half of those we questioned said they were willing to work into later life/retirement to support themselves or their family, but good financial planning might help to prevent that situation.

So, our message to you as intermediaries is that you have to get the message across to your clients that later life financial products are not just about retirement, they are so much more than that. You have to ask your over 50 clients to stop and think about what they want in their financial futures and ask, “when you are looking to put your feet up and look after yourself a bit more, will you be in a position to do it properly?”

If they don’t have a definite yes, then that is the time to speak to them about later life financial planning, not just a pension. Discuss how they can use products such as 50+ residential mortgages and RIOs to help fund the retirement they want, as well as any contingencies they feel they might need.

50+ products are later life products, but they aren’t just for retirement. They are there for your customers to use to life their best later life – whether that be an around the world cruise or helping to pay for their grandson’s first car – or even planning for care needs. Your clients need you to advise them on the whole suite of options available to them to plan for the best retirement possible and use the assets they have worked all their lives for to achieve that.