Women may not be from an entirely different planet when it comes to retirement planning, but their needs are certainly different from a man’s.

In fact, the 2011 Retirement Confidence Study from the Employee Benefits Research Institute found that women are overall less confident and less prepared for retirement than their male counterparts.

So what can you do to better communicate with your female clients and turn their retirement readiness around?

Unique challenges, historical roles

Christine Nigro, president of AXA Advisors, said that women tend to view relationships as the primary focus of their lives — and as a result, they don’t often leave time for themselves.

"Women are so busy taking care of everything else in their life that they're not setting time aside for retirement planning," she said.

Another issue is the historical role of women in society, which can be an issue when working with women in the older generations.

"A lot of women have relied upon their husbands for retirement and they haven't provided for themselves," said Diana Scheel, a financial advisor with Sapient Financial Group. "But they have to remember that it's not just one person retiring, it's two."

Nigro added that, because women's career paths tend not to go in as straight a line as men's, the question of when to retire and how much to save becomes even more complex. Women may take time off to care for aging family members or for motherhood, Nigro said, and all that affects the retirement planning equation.

Then, once women enter retirement, there's the question of how long their income will need to last. Women typically have a longer life expectancy than men — an average of about five years longer.

"About 75 percent of women who are married will be widowed," said Sean Tesoro, president of Salem Five Investment Services. "Then you have not only an unexpected death, but also the added responsibility of having to deal with all these financial decidsions that come crashing down. It really becomes devastating in a lot of cases."

A helping hand

The first thing advisors can do to help their female clients prepare for retirement is educate them about the challenges that they may be up against. This includes not only potentially outliving their spouses, but also needing long term care and other considerations.

Tesoro believes that all financial decisions should be made with both spouses present whenever possible. Even if the husband is the decision maker, it's important for the female to understand the plan, as well.

Scheel agrees, and takes that one step further by urging her female clients to establish a retirement plan of their own, rather than just sharing their husband's plan.

"Women seem to be more open than men," Scheel said. "So we just go over their financial situation and say, 'OK, this is what you'll have at age 65,' and they say, 'My gosh, I can't live on that!' And then you add in inflation and taxes, and they start to see what it's going to be like in retirement and they realize they need to act.

"So many women are DIYers but we're not very good at doing it ourselves."

Nigro acknowledged that having coversations about the end of life, including products like disability insurance, long term care insurance, and life insurance, can be difficult for a woman, but it's necessary.

"I don't think a producer should be afraid of moving into that more high-touch, personal relationship," she said. "When you talk about retirement and end of life finances, that's already a very personal topic."

Communication and product needs

Generally, women have the same product interests as men. However, Nigro, Scheel, and Tesoro all agreed that women tend to be more conservative than men in their investment choices, especially as they're first starting to build a plan and get to know their advisor.

"Women tend to be more skeptical, so sometimes it takes a little longer," Tesoro said. "You've got to make sure you're dealing with them on a more emotional level."

Nigro believes tapping into a woman's emotions is one of the strongest ways to connect with her and show her the power of a solid retirement plan.

"Don't just run a spreadsheet and say, 'Look how much you can save for retirement if you put away x dollars a year,'" she said. "What we find with a lot of female clients is that spreadsheets feel very aggressive. But if the producer says, 'I know you're worried about how you're going to care for your mother,' or something of that nature, and puts it on a more emotional level, the female connects to the idea."

At the end of the day though, successfully helping a woman with her retirement planning all comes down to education.

"Women like knowledge, we like to be informed," Scheel said. "Once we are, we feel good about our decisions. Before that, we don't really see the problem because we don't know it's there."

Instant Insights /

Women and retirement planning: Overcoming the hurdle

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