To help financial advisors within our community connect with their clients about the evolving situation, we offer the following resource: a check-in questionnaire that could either be sent to clients by email or used during client calls. We find it is useful on two fronts: 1) to start an in-depth conversation about a client’s overall perspective on the crisis and 2) to assess a client’s short-term financial needs to determine next steps.
Note: The questions in this questionnaire can be used with permission from Forum Financial Management, the WAA’s parent company.
Check-In Questionnaire Template
Dear Client,
I am checking in with my clients on an individual basis to better understand your personal situation and any concerns you may have related to the coronavirus situation. Please take a few minutes to respond to the following questions, as it would help me enormously in taking whatever steps are best to serve you.
- Does the pandemic currently negatively affect your job(s) and earned income?
- Can you foresee that it might or will in the near- or long-term future? If so, how?
- Do you anticipate needing to provide financial support to any family member, friend or other individual resulting from the crisis? If so, please provide details.
- Does it change the plans that you and I have discussed in our past financial planning conversations? If so, how?
- If you are currently taking regular distributions from your accounts, would you be able to suspend those distributions for a month or two? If you need the funds, you should by all means continue to take them. If you can manage a couple of months without them, it is one thing we can take action on now to improve your overall long-term wealth.
- Do you believe you will need additional cash to meet unforeseen short-term spending needs, and if so, how much and when?
- What other areas of concern do you have that we can address together?
I hope you are well in this extraordinary time. Please contact me if you prefer to discuss these questions by phone or in a virtual meeting.
We help advisors establish and grow successful wealth management practices. To learn more about how we can help you amplify your life’s work, contact us at team@waalliance.com. You can follow us on Twitter@theWAAlliance and on LinkedIn.