financial planning or the lack of it?

just caught up with a prospect who wrote to me requesting for a meeting. but before agreeing to meet-up, he emphasised that he is unable to pay a fee for my services.

on this, i shared with him that in my 14 years in the financial industry, i have never charged anyone for my services.

at our meeting, i found out that like me, he was already in his 60s. his future became a slippery slope after receiving the dreaded pink-slip. the months flew by and after sending out numerous resumes and attending 'so-called' interviews, he came to the conclusion that he was not 'employable', not because of a lack of qualifications but primarily because of his age.

in the end, he had to settle for any job and ended up being a security guard working 12 hour shifts and finding it hard to make ends meet with what he says is a meagre income.

my comments:

when he was younger, he was a firm believer in the btitr (buy term, invest the rest) thingy. and so it was no surprise to find out that his insurance portfolio comprised mainly term policies with a solo regular premium ilp.

and since he is not now so young (in his 60s), he is no longer in the pink of health but carries a medical history. but the most surprising aspect in terms of his financial plan is the lack of a comprehensive h&s plan as well as low protection coverage. the double whammy is that some of his term plans have matured, meaning the term of coverage has expired when he attained his 60th birthday.

because he is on medishield only, my most obvious top concern for him is the lack of a comprehensive h&s coverage.

and he also does not have adequated death and critical illness protection. worst, the critical illness coverage is through his regular premium ilp. and because he is already in his 60s, the assurance charges will continue to increase exponentially and it is anybody's guess whether the policy can be kept in force, going forward. and with regard to his retirement planning, this is via his investment portfolio which is not substantial (current value is in not even reaching 6 figures) and grossly underperformed probably due to inconsistent regular savings invested and lack of periodic reviews and portfolio rebalancing. to top if off, when he turned 55 years some time back, he did not even meet the cpf minimum sum requirement as well.

all-in-all, is this financial planning or the lack of it?