{"id":269192,"date":"2017-01-24T16:50:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T21:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/uncategorized\/canadians-need-help-understanding-benefits-of-financial-plans-cibc-poll-finds\/"},"modified":"2019-12-05T14:49:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T19:49:18","slug":"canadians-need-help-understanding-benefits-of-financial-plans-cibc-poll-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/news\/industry-news\/canadians-need-help-understanding-benefits-of-financial-plans-cibc-poll-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadians need help understanding benefits of financial plans, CIBC poll finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p> The benefits of a documented financial plan are unknown to many Canadians as almost half (46%) say they don’t have one while others confuse their personal budget for a financial plan, according to a new report from Toronto-based Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC).<\/p>\n<p> Of the 46% of Canadians who don’t have a financial plan, 42% say they have a “pretty good idea” of what they need to do to reach their financial goals and don’t need to write anything down. More than a quarter (26%) of this group feels their financial situation is simple and doesn’t require a financial plan.<\/p>\n<p> “While most of us have a fairly good sense of our financial goals, it’s surprising that so many Canadians don’t have a clear road map in place to achieve what they want today and tomorrow,” says Sarah Widmeyer, managing director and head of wealth strategies with CIBC, in a statement.<\/p>\n<p> In contrast, 54% of Canadians say they have a financial plan in place with 64% of this group describe it as a long-term plan that identifies their savings goals and the steps needed to achieve them. However, 36% of those who say they have a financial plan describe it as a short-term plan or a budget they review regularly.<\/p>\n<p> This confusion may leave those Canadians ill-prepared to deal with future financial needs, says Widmeyer: “While budgeting and financial planning go hand-in-hand, a budget alone is insufficient in crafting the life you want in the future.”<\/p>\n<p> Clients should be informed of the various elements of a documented financial plan, which include personal goals, financial needs and priorities in areas such as income, expenses, taxes, retirement planning and insurance, Widmeyer suggests.<\/p>\n<p> The CIBC survey shows that Canadians who have financial plans are more confident that they can handle a variety of unexpected life events than those who don’t.<\/p>\n<p> The area in which the gap between the two sets of survey participants is widest pertains to the possibility of a sudden job loss for someone in the household as 70% of those with a financial plan say they could manage such a scenario while only 58% of those without a plan state the same.<\/p>\n<p> The CIBC survey also explores the effect that working with a financial advisor can have on a Canadian’s ability to handle unexpected scenarios. The areas in which Canadians with advisors feel the most confidence is in managing a health scenario that would make someone unable to work (78%) and paying for medical expenses not covered by an insurance provider (78%). About two-thirds of Canadians without advisors say the same for those two events.<\/p>\n<p> The areas in which advisors seem to be having less of a noticeable effect are in the ability to handle a divorce or a growing family. About half (52%) of those with advisors say they can handle a divorce compared with 46% of those without advisors while 60% of those with advisors say they can handle the expenses connected with a growing family compared to 55% of those without an advisor.<\/p>\n<p> This research is based on data collected from 1,007 Canadian adults with a household income greater than $100,000 a year who are Angus Reid Forum panellists. The data were collected from Jan. 5 to Jan. 9.<\/p>\n<p> <em>Photo copyright: kzenon\/123RF<\/em> <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s much confusion about what a financial plan is and such confusion may leave Canadians ill-prepared to deal with future financial needs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38954,"featured_media":88517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2312,2318],"tags":[2489],"yst_prominent_words":[12394,53653,53643,53640,53635,53632,53630,53627,38316,21766,14384,13298,2,8054,6263,6045,5152,4992,4988,6],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38954"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392047,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269192\/revisions\/392047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269192"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=269192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}