Financial planning is never one-size-fits-all, and that is particularly true when working with women who are divorced, widowed, or single by choice.

Single women may face a combination of challenges that can significantly affect their long-term financial security. Longer life expectancies, lower lifetime earnings, time away from the workforce for caregiving, and the possibility of managing finances without a partner can all influence retirement planning.

During a recent Financial Experts Network webinar, Heather Zack, JD, Advanced Planning Specialist with Carson Wealth Management, explored how advisors can better identify and address these risks.

Her message was clear: advisors have an opportunity to do much more than manage a client's investments. They can help women become more informed, confident, and prepared to make financial decisions throughout every stage of life.

Start With Financial Security—Before a Client Becomes Single

One of the most important takeaways from the session was that planning for single women shouldn't necessarily begin when a woman becomes single.

Women tend to live longer than men while also facing financial challenges that can reduce the resources available to fund those additional years. Lower lifetime earnings and caregiving-related career interruptions can contribute to smaller retirement balances and lower Social Security benefits.

Advisors can help address some of these challenges early.

That might mean helping a client evaluate whether she's being appropriately compensated, comparing the complete benefits packages associated with job opportunities, building sufficient emergency savings, or incorporating the potential costs of childcare and caring for aging parents into her financial plan.

Financial education is equally important.

Heather encouraged advisors working with married couples to make sure both spouses are actively involved in major financial conversations. Both should understand their investments, taxes, retirement strategy, and overall financial position—and both should have access to important financial accounts and documents.

Too often, a woman going through a divorce or losing her spouse discovers that she doesn't fully understand the family's finances because her spouse traditionally handled them. Advisors are in a unique position to help prevent that situation.

Planning for a Divorced Woman

Divorce creates an extensive financial planning checklist.

Social Security is one area where advisors can provide significant value. A divorced client may qualify for benefits based on an ex-spouse's earnings record when certain requirements are satisfied, including rules involving the length of the marriage and remarriage.

Advisors should compare the client's own retirement benefit with any potential divorced-spouse benefit and understand the different rules governing survivor benefits. Depending on the client's circumstances, a surviving divorced spouse may be able to claim a survivor benefit and later switch to her own retirement benefit.

Estate planning also deserves immediate attention following divorce.

Beneficiary designations should be reviewed on IRAs, employer retirement plans, life insurance policies, and transfer-on-death accounts. Wills, trusts, financial powers of attorney, healthcare proxies, executor appointments, and trustee selections may also need to change.

And if the client eventually remarries, advisors should revisit the plan again.

For clients with children from a prior relationship, a Qualified Terminable Interest Property (QTIP) trust may be one strategy to consider. Properly structured, it can provide for a surviving spouse while helping ensure that remaining assets ultimately pass to the client's intended beneficiaries, such as children from a previous marriage.

What About Women Who Are Single by Choice?

Being unmarried doesn't reduce the need for estate planning. In some respects, it can make planning even more important.

Without a spouse or children serving as obvious beneficiaries or fiduciaries, a client needs to make deliberate decisions about who will manage her finances if she's incapacitated, make healthcare decisions on her behalf, administer her estate, and ultimately receive her assets.

A comprehensive plan may include a will, revocable trust, financial power of attorney, healthcare documents, and carefully coordinated beneficiary designations.

Choosing fiduciaries can be particularly challenging. A sibling, niece, nephew, or friend may be appropriate in some circumstances, but a corporate trustee or other professional fiduciary may make sense when there isn't a suitable family member—or when administering a trust would place too great a burden on that person.

Advisors can also help clients think about estate planning asset by asset rather than simply dividing everything by percentages.

For example, a charitably inclined client might consider leaving retirement assets to charity while directing other assets to individual beneficiaries. Business owners should also coordinate succession plans, operating agreements, and buy-sell agreements with their estate plans.

Single women who have children through adoption or assisted reproductive technology can face additional estate-planning considerations. Guardianship and instructions involving frozen eggs, embryos, or other reproductive material may require specialized legal planning.

Widowhood Can Change Everything Overnight

For a newly widowed client, financial planning may suddenly become overwhelming.

Social Security should be reviewed carefully, particularly when dependent children are involved. In the webinar's widowed-client case study, Heather discussed survivor benefits for children as well as benefits potentially available to a surviving parent caring for a deceased worker's child.

Estate planning is another immediate priority.

Beneficiary designations and powers of attorney may need to be changed, and the surviving spouse's estate plan may need to be redesigned now that she controls additional assets.

For clients with larger estates, advisors should also determine whether portability of the deceased spouse's unused federal estate tax exemption was elected. Depending on the client's wealth and objectives, additional strategies involving irrevocable trusts, lifetime gifting, life insurance, or charitable planning may also warrant consideration.

But sophisticated strategies aren't always the most pressing concern.

A widow whose spouse previously managed the household finances may suddenly be responsible for paying bills, managing investments, understanding taxes, establishing a budget, and making major financial decisions.

This is where an advisor's role can become especially valuable.

Instead of immediately overwhelming the client with complex strategies, advisors can help her understand what she owns, how everything works, how much she can comfortably spend, and what she wants the next stage of her life to look like.

Financial Planning Can Build Financial Confidence

Perhaps the broader lesson from the webinar is that good planning for women isn't simply about responding to divorce, widowhood, or another major transition.

It's about preparing clients before those transitions happen.

Encourage both spouses to participate in financial conversations. Make sure each understands the family's assets and liabilities. Give both access to important financial information. Talk about career decisions and caregiving responsibilities. Review beneficiary designations after major life events. And don't assume that an unmarried client has fewer estate-planning needs.

For advisors, these conversations can deepen the client relationship while helping women become more confident participants in their own financial lives.

As Heather emphasized during the session, helping female clients take greater control of their financial security can ultimately give them a better opportunity to achieve long-term financial parity.

5 Questions Financial Advisors Should Be Asking

1. What Social Security benefits could a divorced client receive based on an ex-spouse's record?
A divorced client may qualify for benefits based on a former spouse's record when certain requirements are met, including rules regarding the duration of the marriage and remarriage. Advisors should compare those potential benefits with the client's own retirement benefit and separately evaluate survivor-benefit opportunities.

2. What should advisors review immediately following a divorce?
Start with beneficiary designations and estate documents. Retirement accounts, life insurance, transfer-on-death accounts, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare documents, and fiduciary appointments should all be reviewed following a major change in marital status.

3. Does a single client without children really need an estate plan?
Yes. Without proper planning, state law may determine who receives the client's assets. Single clients should also determine who will make financial and healthcare decisions if they become incapacitated and who will administer their estate after death.

4. Why is portability important when working with widowed clients?
Portability may allow a surviving spouse to preserve a deceased spouse's unused federal estate tax exemption. Heather recommended asking widowed clients whether portability was elected and, when applicable, reviewing the deceased spouse's estate tax return to determine the amount of unused exemption.

5. What is one of the most valuable things an advisor can do for a newly widowed client?
Help her understand and take control of her finances. Review accounts, investments, income, expenses, bills, taxes, and the overall financial plan. Then help her establish a comfortable spending level and define her future financial and legacy goals. For someone who wasn't previously involved in the family's major financial decisions, that education can be just as important as any investment or tax strategy.