A Touchy Subject; How can you help with a client who is dying or has received a fatal diagnosis?(People/Transitions)

Byline: Joanmarie Kalter

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The voice exploded out of the telephone in anger. The client, calling at 6:30 in the morning, had opened his mail to find his investments tumbling. It was the market sell-off of late 2008, and his message bristled with rage and frustration. John Parker, an advisor with IPI at Home Federal Bank in Middlesboro, Ky., was, frankly, rattled. Those were difficult months for all his clients-but this one was different. His client's wife, in her forties and mother to their two teenage children, had, at this moment of market turmoil, just learned she was dying from an aggressive form of cancer.

"My first thought was that I must have let them down, done something wrong," says Parker. On reflection, however, he realized the depth of their distress had nothing to do with him. "Life had dealt them a blow, and they needed someone to take care of their needs, not someone worried about his own ego."

While a sick and possibly dying client is one of the most difficult situations an advisor can face, sadly it's not uncommon. A dire diagnosis will drive many people into an advisor's office, whether to free up cash for treatment, finally confront the need for an estate plan or update an existing one. It can require personal skills that most advisors have never learned. For his part, Parker had taken some counseling classes in graduate school, enough to conclude, as he puts it, that "I know absolutely nothing about it, and it's best to leave it to the professionals who do know." Yet it can also present an advisor with opportunities to grow in ways that can't be counted in …