Saturday, August 24, 2013

Worry . . . Worry . . . Worry . . . Why?

Insurance giant Nationwide Financial just completed a survey of adults with $100 thousand or more in investible assets.  Not surprisingly, 58% of the respondents were afraid of death.  However, 83% are afraid of another financial crisis.  In other words, more people are afraid of another financial crisis than they are of dying.

There are so many ways to digest this nugget.  The philosopher queen of the libertarian party, Ayn Rand, would be pleased that people are just worrying about themselves, instead of world peace or the end of suffering.

Extentialists would be annoyed that 58% of us still over-rate the importance of death, which they regard as "the ultimate absurdity."  If you're going to think about it at all, think about controlling the risk factors to your health and how to find a good financial planner to help with your estate planning.  Worrying about death is just plain silly!

Financial planners marvel that survivors of the Great Recession are too afraid of risk and will do one of two things.  They will either refuse to take risk appropriately, or they will over-react to the next bear market, which is always inevitable.  We give clients a risk questionnaire to identify their risk tolerance but know they can become extremely risk-adverse without even a moment's notice.

Although painful to admit, it would be better for the non-existential financial planner if clients worried more about death and less about another financial crisis.  After all, you will survive many business cycles, but you only die once.

But, the existential financial planner wants you to accept risk as normal, especially during bear markets . . . and just enjoy your life now!

Worrying doesn't help.  It is just another risk factor to your healthy life.