CFP Board's new rules mean your financial planner will ask who to call if your money decisions slip
CFP Board's new diminished capacity requirements: planners must offer clients a trusted contact and recommend an estate plan. Here is what changes.
CFP Board set new diminished capacity requirements on November 10, 2026: CFP professionals who monitor a client's finances must offer the client a chance to name trusted contacts and must recommend an estate plan. For retirees and their families, it means the planner will ask early who to call, and who can act, if the client's money decisions start to slip.
Key points
- CFP Board published its Guide to Planning for and Managing Diminished Financial Capacity in Clients on November 10, 2026, with two ethics requirements for financial planning engagements that include monitoring.
- CFP professionals must give clients the opportunity to designate one or more trusted contacts the planner may share information with when concerns arise.
- They must also recommend that clients develop an appropriate estate plan, which may include a durable financial power of attorney.
- CFP Board's Ethics CE program, running January 2027 to December 2028, covers the requirements, and each professional then has a year after the course to build them into their practice.
- More than 110,000 people in the U.S. hold CFP certification, according to CFP Board's November 2026 announcement.
Why does diminished financial capacity matter for retirement savings?
Because a decline in money judgment often shows up in the accounts before anyone names it, and older savers are a target. In one year, from June 2022 to June 2023, U.S. financial institutions filed 155,415 reports on suspected elder financial exploitation, covering roughly $27 billion in suspicious activity, according to the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
CFP Board lists the warning signs a planner may see: unusual spending, abrupt changes to a will or beneficiary designations, and trouble keeping track of basic household finances. It notes that age, an accident, illness or another medical condition can each erode a person's ability to make financial decisions, that diminished capacity is not always all-or-nothing, and that it can leave a client more exposed to risky choices, scams and exploitation.
What are CFP Board's new diminished capacity requirements?
The new diminished capacity requirements are two steps that CFP Board's guide says a CFP professional must take, under its Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct, within a reasonable time of beginning a financial planning engagement that includes monitoring:
- Offer a trusted contact. The planner gives the client the opportunity to name one or more trusted contacts with whom the planner may share information when concerns arise.
- Recommend an estate plan. The planner recommends that the client develop an appropriate estate plan, which may include a durable financial power of attorney.
The timing is phased. CFP Board's Ethics CE program, which runs from January 2027 through December 2028, will cover the requirements, and each CFP professional has a year after attending that course to put them into practice.
A financial planner may see changes in someone's financial life before anyone realizes there's a larger problem.
— K. Dane Snowden, CEO, CFP Board
What is a trusted contact, and how is it different from a power of attorney?
A trusted contact is someone the planner is allowed to talk to about a concern; a power of attorney is someone the client has authorized to act. Brokerage clients may already have named one: FINRA Rule 4512 requires broker-dealers to make reasonable efforts to obtain a trusted contact person age 18 or older for non-institutional accounts, whom the firm may contact about possible financial exploitation, the customer's health status or the identity of any guardian, executor, trustee or holder of a power of attorney.
CFP Board's guide covers the same ground for planners: it explains what a trusted contact can and cannot do and compares general, durable and springing powers of attorney. It also explains why the timing matters. A CFP professional's duty of confidentiality has no built-in exception for clients with diminished capacity, which CFP Board says makes planning in advance critical.
What else does the guide give planners?
The guide pairs the two requirements with practical help, CFP Board says:
- Conversation starters for raising the subjects that come with aging, such as who helps with money, medical decisions and where to live, before signs of decline appear.
- Warning signs of diminished capacity and of financial exploitation.
- Best practices for managing the engagement, taking protective actions, reporting to government authorities and building a wider team of professionals.
CFP Board stresses that planners are not expected to diagnose anyone. What it asks is that they watch for warning signs, move quickly when they see them, keep careful records, and stay within their firm's procedures and the law.
What should retirees and families do now?
Our analysis: the requirements put two conversations on the agenda that are easiest to have while everyone is well. Clients working with a CFP professional can expect to be asked for a trusted contact and to hear a recommendation to put an estate plan in place, with a durable financial power of attorney as one option. Families can prepare by agreeing on who that contact should be and by reviewing existing estate documents; our readers' estate planning strategies for protecting retirement savings and how to approach the topic of estate planning are a starting point. Planners can compare the guide with how peers already manage clients' cognitive decline.
Frequently asked questions
When do CFP professionals have to follow the new rules?
CFP Board's Ethics CE program that runs from January 2027 through December 2028 covers the requirements, and a CFP professional has a year after attending that course to incorporate them.
Do the requirements apply to every client?
No. They apply to financial planning engagements that include monitoring, and the planner takes the two steps within a reasonable time of starting such an engagement, according to CFP Board.
Does a client have to name a trusted contact?
The requirement is that the planner gives the client the opportunity to designate one or more trusted contacts. The client decides whom to name.
Who is CFP Board?
It is the U.S. professional organization for personal financial planners. CFP Board sets standards for financial planning and administers the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER certification, held by more than 110,000 people.
Sources
- As Americans Age, CFP Board Publishes Guide to Help CFP Professionals Plan for and Manage Diminished Capacity in Clients: press release from CFP Board via GlobeNewswire, 10 November 2026.
- Guide to Planning For and Managing Diminished Financial Capacity in Clients: the guide's page on CFP Board's website, 10 November 2026.
- FinCEN Issues Analysis on Elder Financial Exploitation: the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's summary of its Financial Trend Analysis, 18 April 2024.
- FINRA Rule 4512, Customer Account Information: the rule on trusted contact persons for brokerage accounts, in FINRA's rulebook.