Financial Planning in Divorce Especially Important for Women

 Posted on December 02, 2012 in Divorce

Financial planning isn't up to men anymore, and in recent years, according to the Chicago Tribune, the financial services industry has been courting to women, opening up a new segment of the market both for financial services and for single, widowed, and divorced women. Marissa Fox-Foley, executive vice president of marketing for LPL Financial, told the Tribune that "women live longer and tend to move in and out of the workforce with more fluidity than men." This, of course, is one reason that financial planning companies have recently been targeting female clients.

It's become more and more common in recent years for women to hire financial advisers, especially those going through a divorce or entering retirement age alone. Candace Bahr, managing partner of the Bahr Investment Group in California—and co-founder of the Women's Institute for Financial Education (wife.org)—told the Tribune, that "I had a potential client come in today who is 70. She got divorced at 50 and was telling me she'd been offered part of a retirement plan as part of the divorce and had turned it down… often women, when they're divorcing, don't realize the value of these retirement plans."

According to the Financial Planning Association, "several studies indicate that divorce is financially more difficult for women than men," and that difficulty only increases if the woman hasn't made any strides in financial planning. The Social Security Administration's Modeling Income in the Near Term data "forecasts that the number of women eligible to receive retired-worker benefits based on the earnings of their ex-spouses will decrease."

Financial planning, whether you're a soon-to-be ex-wife or husband, is an important aspect of divorce that should be discussed with a professional. Don't go through it alone. Contact a dedicated Illinois divorce attorney today.

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