“However as the FCA highlights in its work on vulnerability, anyone can become vulnerable, even temporarily, due to life events such as bereavement, debt or illness.” Therefore, Hanifan continues, “it is often better to think of clients living in vulnerable circumstances rather than vulnerable clients”.
One way to develop a good policy is to ensure that everyone within the organisation has had a good level of training in all aspects of potential vulnerability.
Organisations such as Solla provide a range of courses on this and related areas of advising older clients. Advisers can also benefit from the Dementia Friends Champion training with the Alzheimer’s Society and the Advanced Certificate in Advising Vulnerable Clients with the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (Step).
Timpson recommends that all financial advisers who are not members of Solla collaborate with or signpost to a Solla member: “This for me is a key vulnerable customer best practice action”, he says.
But for Henry Tapper, chief executive and founding chairman of Age Wage, nothing beats the lived experience of being around older people.
“Being around older people is the best training for advising them. If you want to work in this area, you have to be experienced not just with older people's physical vulnerabilities but also their particular values, those values are entrenched and advisers need to work with them.
"This means listening carefully and developing an approach that works for each older client. It is very easy to forget that we are vulnerable in different ways."
Anita Boniface is a freelance writer
