Cetera Financial Group advisors now have access to technology aimed at helping clients 55 years and older and their families.
Cetera is offering the platform designed by Carefull Corporation, based in New York City. Cetera said it was drawn to Carefull’s holistic ability to protect older adult independence while also helping their loved ones.
The platform’s benefits can also help advisors retain assets by building relationships with client family members, Cetera says. Nine out of ten adult children won’t use their parents’ advisor, Cetera says, putting pressure on the need for interactions with the next generation.
Carefull’s platform creates “cross-generational continuity” for advisors by offering:
1. A trusted contacts infrastructure: Going beyond existing Finra requirements, Carefull encourages up to three trusted contacts as part of the Carefull client experience. The account owner can then choose whether to share account alerts, documents and passwords with these specific contacts. The client gets to safely bring in family members when they are ready, while the advisors gain a view into what Carefull calls “Share of Family,” the group of next-generation relationships that matter.
2. “2-Sided Benefits” serving both generations: Carefull features are developed in a way that serves multiple generations, offering the advisor relationship-building tools for the broader family. Carefull Vault, for example, protects the passwords of older clients, while safely allowing them to grant access to the next generation. Similarly, financial caregivers (the 45 million U.S. adults assisting with parents’ finances) benefit from transparency and early warning, with notifications that cover things such as potential scams, behavior change, or even possible mistakes or forgotten bills.
Cetera advisors also have access to Carefull’s proprietary financial caregiving content platform, which covers areas including fraud protection, cross-generational finance issues, legal and planning, caring for someone else’s money, and issues around finances and Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Cetera, headquartered in San Diego, Calif., supports more than 8,000 independent financial professionals, including solo practitioners, teams and ensemble organizations, institutional financial professionals, and branches.
