It’s no secret that it’s a trying time to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community. While the country has progressed extensively into accepting same-sex couples, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done, especially for members in the transgender community.
That’s the belief espoused by Mindy Neira. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community herself, she says getting into the niche of serving the queer community to be of utmost importance.
The principal and wealth manager at Modera Wealth Management, based in Westwood, New Jersey, noted there’s a real need to serve these clients, with several unique aspects of financial planning that need to be considered.
“It was almost a duty to put myself out there and be a resource for others in the community,” she says. “If someone reaches out to me and I’m not a good fit for them, I’ve also built up a network of other advisors who are close allies, or in the queer community themselves, where I can make an introduction so that client is able to find a financial planner to work with.”
Neira points to her own experience of financial planning that opened her eyes to all the aspects LGBTQ+ clients could face. For one, she highlighted that estate planning was one of the more challenging experiences.
“Not only am I in a same-sex relationship, but we were starting a family at the time and our family is built differently than maybe other families,” Neira admits. “I wanted to make sure that our future child was protected and that we had an estate attorney who understood what our concerns were.”
In addition to that, clients who might be going through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and have frozen embryos, that also needs to be included in estate plans, which could also incur extra expenses out of pocket.
For clients who are transitioning, there’s also the matter of changing names on legal documents, Neira added. Clients should ensure that not only are their documents set up with their new name but that their loved ones have the changed name on their estate planning documents as well.
Neira believes there’s a wage gap across the country and those among the LGBTQ+ community are disproportionately affected, earning less pay than their counterparts. Statistics from the HRC foundation found for 7,000 full time LGBTQ+ workers, median earnings are roughly $900 weekly, compared to $1,100 of a typical worker in the United States. Essentially, LGBTQ+ workers earn 90 cents for every dollar that the typical worker earns.
“If you layered on ethnicity or if that person’s transgender or nonbinary, those numbers come down even more,” she added. “We also tend to live in higher cost areas so cost of living is higher. If you want to live in an area that may be more accepting and open, you might be in a more urban setting.”
There’s also the marriage factor to consider, Neira noted. Even though there’s marriage equality and LGBTQ+ members can get married, some might decide not…
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