New York Life Program Aids Advice Across Gender Lines

New York Life Investments has launched a new value-add program for advisers, designed to help them work more effectively and responsively with clients who are women.

Firm leaders say New York Life Investments has spent the past year designing, developing and reimagining how advisers can engage and partner differently with their female clients to help them achieve financial success. The new value-add program leverages proprietary research and perspectives combined with practical tools that enable advisers to address their specific needs, the firm says.

To help explain the need for this type of program, New York Life Investments has also published survey data showing 31% of women who have recently separated from their husband or partner, or who have divorced or become a widow, feel that their financial adviser patronizes them. Of this group, 51% said they might not work with an adviser again.

According to Ian Forrest, global chief marketing officer of New York Life Investment Management, one key survey findings is that women investors can be segmented by their life objectives, risk profile, interest in financial education and type of relationship with their financial advisers.

“These nuances, coupled with women living longer than men, provide the insight and opportunity for advisers to engage differently with women investors to increase their overall satisfaction,” Forrest says.

The four main sub-segments of women investors, and some of New York Life Investments’ findings about these groups, include the following:

• Suddenly Single – women that have been recently separated, divorced or widowed in the past five years. In this group, 32% feel patronized by financial advisers and 51% may not work with an adviser again. 
• Married Breadwinner – professional women that represent the primary source of income for the household. In this group, 44% feel that financial advisers treat women differently.
• Married Contributor – professional and non-professional women whose primary contributions to the household tend to be non-financial. In this group, 32% feel excluded in conversations with financial advisers.
• Single Breadwinner – professional and non-professional women defined as living alone or as a single-family unit. In this group, 27% expressed a desire for greater financial education.

More information on the program is available here.