Adviser insight: Cultivate control for clients with cancer

Keeping in control

A sub-heading for this piece might be ‘keeping control’ because that is what it is about. In this sense, my work fits in with the current interest in financial planning, using for example the George Kinder approach.

Emotionally, a cancer diagnosis can make people feel they have been hit by a train, creating anger, resentment (why me?) and in this state they are probably not going to make rational decisions. This takes me back to listening. You have to admire people who face up to life of a few months.

What helped me cope with my illness was the courage and dignity of my parents who’d had cancer, and several family members, including two cousins, who died of cancer at age 48, the same age at which my mother died. Seeing this courage gave me a little voice in the back of my head telling me not to let the side down if my turn came.

First cancer case

My first case of dealing with a client with cancer was before my own diagnosis. My call to the client was about his paid-up executive pension plans but within one minute he told me he’d had most of a brain tumour removed. I asked: ‘How long have you got?’ I told him he didn’t have to say if he didn’t want to. His answer, that 50% of people with the same condition die within 12-18 months, was direct and delivered without emotion.

In his early 40s, the idea of an annuity and tax-free cash seemed ridiculous at best and obscene at worst. But getting the funds paid out to him in cash took much longer than planned. Even then it only happened after wresting control of the file from an efficient administrator.

Vulnerable clients

People with cancer are vulnerable. Alarm bells would ring if I felt they did not understand what I was saying, and in my approach to vulnerable clients I freely admit to paranoia. Fortunately, the choice I offer to clients is simple: Do you want your money tied up in a pension or in cash in your bank account?

My biggest worry? I hope some smart arse doesn’t try to turn this into a wheeze for getting pensions paid out in cash and tax-free.