Financial professionals should put together teams of local experts who can help them help clients coping with the effects of opioid addiction.
Cheryl Canzanella, a longtime life insurance agent who served as president of the National Association of Insurance Financial Advisors chapter in Northeast Florida, gave that advice Thursday during a NAIFA webinar.
About 2.5 million U.S. residents ages 18 or older had opioid use disorder in 2021. Opoid addiction may be one reason U.S. mortality trends have been worse in recent years than mortality trends in other rich countries.
Canzanella learned about the topic after her husband, Colin Goodell, was injured in an automobile accident. He used painkillers to treat his pain and became addicted to opioids. He died from an accidental overdose in 2017 at age 38.
A family fighting the effects of opioid addiction may face high treatment costs, the inability of the individual with addiction to work, the impact of property damage or theft related to the addiction, and the need for relatives to bring up the young children of loved ones who are incarcerated due to addiction.
Some families may raid retirement accounts. Others may face tough decisions about trusts and wills.
"We have hard conversations every day," Canzanella said. "But we don't talk about addiction. This is something so shameful that most people are going to hide it at all costs."
Financial professionals can help by making sure that clients have thought about life insurance and by assembling teams of experts who can answer questions about matters such as support programs, trusts, and efficient strategies for getting cash quickly, she said.
She suggested that financial professionals raise the topic with clients by saying, "I'm working with a lot of families that are impacted by this. Did you see that news article about this?"
If financial professionals acknowledge that addiction is a common problem, clients "will know they're not alone," she said.
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