Aging planning starts with conversations.

Lauren Clough, Co-Founder and CEO of bQuest joined me on the Get Ready Before Life Happens podcast to explore why aging plans matter, how early family conversations create clarity, and the important role financial planners and care professionals play in helping families navigate caregiving decisions. Lauren shares practical insights on aging in place, building support systems, and creating a plan that aligns with a family’s wishes and values.

Key Takeaways

• Aging planning begins with understanding a person’s wishes and long-term goals
• Early family conversations help reduce stress and improve decision-making later
• Caregiving often evolves over time and requires different types of support along the way
• Aging in place requires planning around home safety, caregiving, and financial resources
• Financial advisors can play an important role in facilitating family conversations and long-term planning
• Trusted professionals and vetted service providers help families navigate complex caregiving decisions with greater confidence

Tony’s Take: When families talk openly about wishes, care, and support before a crisis happens, they create a stronger foundation for the future. That clarity becomes a gift for everyone involved.

 

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🎧 Listen to the podcast below or on your favorite podcast app. 

 

Connect with Lauren Clough: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-tracy-clough-13053819/
• bQuest Website: https://thebquest.com

Resources mentioned: 

• Aging Wishes Guide
• How to Create an Aging Plan That Works with Aging-in-Place Expert Carol Chiang on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast (here)

 Bio: 

 Lauren Clough is the Co-Founder and CEO of bQuest, the first Care Intelligence Platform purpose-built for the financial services industry. bQuest partners with wealth management firms, RIAs, and family offices to ensure families receive timely, coordinated support during aging, end-of-life, and after-loss transitions.

Drawing on more than a decade as a senior manager in her family’s global logistics business, Lauren brings deep operational expertise in scaling complex, fragmented systems. Her leadership is also shaped by her family’s multi-generational Alzheimer’s journey, which exposed firsthand the gaps between financial planning and aging care support.

At bQuest, Lauren is building the infrastructure that bridges wealth and health equipping financial advisors to show up for clients not only in markets, but in life’s most personal and vulnerable moments.

Her mission is to transform financial services by making longevity planning and care coordination a standard offering so that every family under the guidance of a trusted advisor has clarity, advocacy, and real support as they navigate caregiving and aging.

 

Transcript

Tony Steuer:
Planning ahead changes everything when it comes to care decisions.

I’m joined today by Lauren Clough, co-founder and CEO of Bequest.

Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren Clough:
Thank you, Tony. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited for this conversation.

Tony:
I am as well because this is such an important topic.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your origin story, and how did it lead you to founding Bequest?

Lauren:
It’s interesting. I didn’t expect to be here, co-founding a technology-enabled business around care.

But it is certainly personal to me, as it is personal to my co-founder, Kelly. We have both been through our own caregiving journeys.

My extended family has navigated Alzheimer’s for multiple generations. So I’ve seen firsthand the level of care needed to support family members, whether through aging in general or through a disease like Alzheimer’s, which can create challenges for a decade or even longer.

It was something personal and complex that needed support over the course of many years.

I looked at it and thought, all families are on this journey of life and loss together, certainly at different stages and with their own unique experiences. It is something we all navigate, yet really no one knows how to navigate it effectively because there is so much complexity to it.

Over time, you might need to engage multiple service providers through aging in place, home transition, end-of-life care, death, and estate administration.

So I looked at it and said, this is something that is typically really challenging for families and something we all go through. Is there a way for me to make it just a little bit easier?

That is coupled with my professional background, which is in supply chain management.

Naturally, when I was going through this and connecting with different service providers, I was struck by the fact that they are really incredible at delivering hands-on care for families at various stages along the journey.

But I didn’t know many of them even existed, let alone how to identify the right services at the right time or how to properly vet these providers.

Many times, they could be coming into a loved one’s home. You need that level of trust. You need to know they are qualified, properly licensed, and can be trusted.

All of that is extremely overwhelming to families.

I viewed it as a fragmentation problem and said, why hasn’t somebody done the work to aggregate this fragmented network of providers and curate it in a way that ensures the highest quality providers are part of the network?

Why hasn’t someone gone through the effort to vet them properly so that when families get connected with them, they know who to engage with and know they are best in class and can be trusted?

I found out that really didn’t exist today. That is where we started building it nearly four years ago.

Tony:
That’s really interesting.

I agree. This is something I know we’ve dealt with, and I’m sure many people watching and listening have either been involved with this kind of decision or experienced it with a family member.

It’s like, how do we find this caregiver?

As you said, if you find one person who can do a certain role, all of a sudden you may realize you need someone else who can do another type of role.

Before we jump into the rest of the conversation, tell us a little bit about how Bequest works.

Lauren:
Absolutely.

We built Bequest based on what we were hearing from family caregivers, what they were looking for, what they needed help with, what our service providers were experiencing, and very importantly, what our financial partners and financial advisors were hearing from their clients.

So we built it based on real-time feedback.

The big aspect is what I shared. You have to start with the service providers because that is ultimately what families need to engage with.

Many times, families receive a crisis call, so they need support fast.

We needed to pre-build this network of a wide variety of services.

Today, we have over 30 categories of providers in our network, anywhere from home care and home health providers to home modification specialists, aging life care managers, senior placement agents, senior move coordinators, estate sales, death doulas, grief therapists, hospice, palliative care, and the list goes on.

We identified the most critical types of service providers, then started aggregating the best in class.

We created a proprietary four-step vetting process to ensure they can be trusted and are properly licensed.

Then we brought them together and expanded that network across the country.

Wherever families need support, and wherever advisors need a referral network, we have it.

That was the start.

Then we said, our mission is to help millions of families across the country, so how can we do that in a scalable manner?

We needed technology to support this.

So we built a digital platform that provides access for families and clients of financial advisors. We provide a portal for financial advisors to access the network and share referrals and information directly with clients.

We also created a way for service providers to engage with both parties when the need arises.

Tony:
That’s great.

As you mentioned, you have more than 30 different types of providers, and I think that is part of the overwhelm.

It happens fast. Somebody may be discharged from the hospital or from a skilled nursing facility, and all of a sudden they need a particular type of caregiver.

It’s like, “Oh my gosh,” and you may end up calling the first person you can find rather than going through a more thoughtful process.

That makes this really important.

As part of this, we talk about preparing before something is needed. We’re already hitting on some of the reasons people should think about caregiving before it’s needed.

What are some other things people should think about when it comes to caregiving and planning ahead as much as they can?

Lauren:
There are two pieces I want to hit on.

We want to plan ahead. Everyone knows you are going to have the best outcomes when you plan ahead.

But it is not as easy as it sounds.

We are humans, and human nature is not always to engage in conversations that can be challenging. Yet we know we need to.

Having that conversation between generations is extremely critical, but not all parties always want to have that conversation.

This is why we are so excited about partnering with financial advisors and financial planners. They really are the quintessential planners.

For families working with a financial advisor, they are already talking about estate planning. They are talking about financial futures. Care expenses are a big part of both types of planning.

We look at it and say, a financial advisor is already having this level of conversation with families, so let’s extend it a little further around longevity.

We are now living longer lives, so we need to envision what that later chapter looks like.

From a financial planning perspective, we need to understand exactly what that vision is so the financial planner can build that into the model.

When someone starts needing care in the home, we have that built in. We have it planned for. Many times, that is private pay. If you do not have long-term care insurance, that is going to be an out-of-pocket expense, so you need to make sure it is planned for properly.

Something like a home transition is also important. If eventually a loved one needs to look at a senior living facility, whether that’s a continuing care retirement community or something else, that is a significant cost.

Again, planning for that and working with the financial advisor helps ensure those conversations have been had and that everything is set up to honor the wishes of the client or the client’s loved ones.

Tony:
That makes sense.

Some financial planners are really taking this into account, and some aren’t.

I call it creating an aging plan: thinking through these things.

I had another guest on who talked about setting up your home so you can live in place because the majority of people want to live in place.

I know I do. I don’t want to move into a care facility if I don’t have to. I think the majority of people feel that way.

There are also not enough care facilities and retirement communities. Some local retirement communities I know are really expensive, and things change.

It is important for people to think about this.

For financial planners who haven’t really started to think about this, how can they start having these conversations?

And for people with or without a financial planner, how do they start to talk about this?

Lauren:
I want to first underscore what you said because it is really important.

The majority of Americans want to stay in their homes as long as possible.

That is a wish, and it is important to vocalize it. But it is also important to take the next step and say, how do I ensure that this wish can be honored?

Part of it is assessing the home.

Okay, you want to stay in your home. Is your home set up to allow you to safely age in place?

If not, what do we need to do now, while you have full mobility and are independent, to ensure that as your needs progress, the home is safe and allows you to stay there as long as possible?

Also, understand what providers are available once those care needs extend further.

If something were to happen, such as a fall, which is very common and can happen in someone’s home, especially if they don’t set up their home properly with home modifications, then what happens?

You are in crisis. You may have to go to the hospital, perhaps have surgery, and then eventually come back into the home needing help.

But you don’t know who that is. It becomes a snap judgment, and it is really difficult for families to navigate.

That is why it is so important to start with your wishes.

If the wish is, “I want to stay in my home,” then the next question is, “What do we need to do to make that possible?”

That is where the planning comes in.

Tony:
That’s an important example.

For people watching and listening to the podcast, you may have heard my conversation with Carol Chiang, who is a living-in-place expert. I’ll be sure to link to it in the show notes.

That was the whole conversation: getting set up for aging in place.

What Carol recommended is the same thing you are recommending. Start thinking about this before you need to. You don’t modify your home after you’ve had a fall. You plan for that just in case.

With my mother-in-law, for example, small area rugs were a slip hazard. You start to think about those things because slipping at home is probably one of the biggest dangers for a senior.

Lauren:
Those are great examples, Tony.

When people hear home modifications, they often think of huge renovations.

That is not always the case.

You can do some small things, like managing rugs or removing them altogether, adding grab bars in the bathroom, and improving lighting, especially at nighttime.

There are some pretty small things that can be done that do not cost a lot of money and can help prevent the most common things that happen in the home.

That is all part of planning.

Again, it starts with a conversation: conversations with your spouse, conversations with your adult children, and certainly conversations with your professional advisors, like a financial advisor.

That is really where it begins.

Tony:
It’s really a risk protection program.

That’s part of my mission with financial readiness: protecting against life’s what-ifs.

As you mentioned, these are small things you can do to protect against a particular risk.

Because the cost of long-term care, or even short-term rehabilitation care after a fall, can be so expensive, it doesn’t cost anything to take out area rugs. It doesn’t cost a lot of money to put in grab bars or make the shower safe to step into.

That’s all wonderful.

One of the things you talk about is that this is a progression, and we need to think about it as a progression.

Can you go into that a little bit more, that it is not always just a one-time decision?

Lauren:
This was something we recognized as family caregivers.

When we wanted to build a solution for families, and for their advisors as well, we recognized that this is a journey.

It is a progression of needs. It is the continuum of care.

It is not always ideal to provide one point solution. We wanted to provide solutions across the continuum, which could span multiple years, if not a decade or longer.

We looked at the entire journey and went back to what you shared: the majority of Americans want to stay in their homes as long as possible.

That is really the start of the care progression.

Let’s focus there.

Let’s identify what providers and services are needed to support that desire and that wish.

We also know through personal experience and from hearing from a lot of families that, yes, that was our wish, but for a variety of reasons, we may need to start thinking about a home transition.

That could be simply downsizing or moving into a home that is set up more properly for aging in place. It could be a ranch-style home or something else.

Or, for a variety of reasons, including safety, socialization, or other needs, the family member may want to look at a senior living community.

There are lots of options there, and that is a really big life transition for the loved one who is moving and for the greater family.

You do not want to make a snap decision there.

You want to make sure you are making an informed decision, and that requires support from professionals who really understand that space.

Again, that is another big transition where you might want to work with different providers.

Then you make that transition, need support there, and continue down the path.

Unfortunately, at some point, hopefully in the long-term future, we may reach end-of-life care needs. Once again, families need support there.

What providers are best suited to support them?

At some point, there will be a death in the family. That is a really hard time, and decisions have to be made very quickly.

Who can guide them through that?

After the loss of a loved one, there are estate administration duties that fall on some family members, all while they are dealing with grief.

So we look at it as this entire experience and journey.

Along the way, there are critical service providers that exist to support families, but families often don’t know they exist or don’t know how to access them.

So they struggle through it on their own.

It could be a much smoother path if we work with the people who exist to support us.

Tony:
As I think about it, is your website just for financial planners, or can consumers use it as well?

Lauren:
The website provides information.

Our digital platform is really for financial professionals.

The way we work is that we partner with financial advisors and firms to deliver these resources and this network of vetted service providers.

We provide live expert-led webinars throughout the year. We have email education and a digital library of resources that we deliver to our financial partners so they can deliver those to their clients and families navigating these experiences.

Today, it is really delivered through partnership with financial advisors.

But we certainly want to help as many families as possible. So if a family reached out to me and said, “How can you help me?” we would certainly extend the platform for their use.

Tony:
Fantastic.

The people who come to mind are life coaches and financial coaches. There is also a trend where many financial planners are becoming more like coaches and helping people through life transitions.

For those people as well, your platform would be really helpful.

And just for people watching and listening, Lauren is not paying me. I’m talking about this because I think it’s a great platform. This is not a paid endorsement by any means.

One of the other things is that when this happens, as you’ve talked about, there are a lot of emotions, and people are hurried.

What advice do you give to people or planners when clients and families are freaking out, and rightfully so?

Lauren:
We talk a lot about the crisis call because that is what it ends up being.

You pick up the phone. It could be late at night or during the day. Something happened.

A common example is going back to the fall. Mom, Dad, or a spouse fell, and now we have to figure out what’s next.

That is why we created this network of providers and why we did that proactively.

When the family gets the crisis call, or when the advisor or professional supporting the family gets the crisis call, they can react quickly and say, “Okay, we understand what is going on. Let us get you some help fast.”

It really is as easy as that.

They come to the platform. We just launched a new feature that allows the professional or family member to explain, in natural language, what happened.

They might say, “I just got the call from my dad,” or an advisor might say, “I just got the call from my client, and this is what they are dealing with.”

We take that information, digest it, and provide the advisor or client with a short list of service providers best suited for the family or client, based on their geography.

Oftentimes, it comes down to needing hands-on care in a specific geography.

We provide that short list and allow them to connect directly to the service provider.

For example: “This is what happened. We are in rehab. We have to be discharged in 48 hours. We need somebody who can help transport Mom to our home. Then we need someone who can stay with her for the next couple of weeks. Who can help?”

Getting the family or advisor connected with service providers who can jump in at a moment’s notice to provide hands-on care, we think that is the best outcome.

That is how we built the platform and solution: to provide quick response when needed.

Tony:
That’s really it.

When you get these calls, it’s not like this will happen in two weeks. The fall happened, and now the family has to figure out what’s next.

You are under a tremendous amount of pressure.

I’m sure this is resonating with a lot of people watching and listening who have been through this themselves or with family.

Before we start to wrap up, one of the other big things is having the conversation as a family.

You may have an aging parent who wants to be independent and is mostly independent, but they may also be at greater fall risk or have other concerns.

How can families start to have these conversations?

What is a good conversation starter with somebody who doesn’t want to have the conversation?

Lauren:
We get that question a lot.

Oftentimes, the question comes from the adult child, maybe someone in their 60s supporting a parent in their 80s, and the parent still doesn’t want to talk about it.

There are two ways I typically respond to that.

One is that we have resources, and I’d be happy to share this with anyone listening or watching who would like it. We have an Aging Wishes Guide.

Oftentimes, it is helpful for the family member who wants to initiate the conversation but doesn’t know how to start or even know what questions they should be answering.

The guide is multifaceted and gives the family prompts and questions to start the conversation.

Advisors can also offer great support here.

Many of our financial partners encourage clients to have family meetings where they can go through estate planning decisions and also talk about longevity planning and aging care wishes.

We provide resources for the advisor to facilitate that conversation.

That can be a nice high-touch service advisors offer.

The last thing I’ll mention is that service providers are well equipped to facilitate these conversations.

I’ve heard so many stories from our service providers where, when they are brought into the conversation, they may have that conversation in the family’s living room.

They know how to ask questions or share stories to disarm the aging adult who may not want to have the conversation.

They know how to approach it in a way that gets them talking, sharing their wishes, and understanding their personal goals.

Then the conversation changes, and they may be willing to consider options.

It can blow family members’ minds because they have been trying to get to that point for years. All of a sudden, the parent may be happy to tour a facility, consider in-home care a few days a week, or consider other options.

I think it is because of natural family dynamics.

When the adult child, no matter how old they are, comes to the parent, who has always been the hero, and says, “We need to talk about your needs,” that can feel vulnerable, and it does not always go well.

When you introduce a third party and the greater family takes more of a backseat, things can shift, and they can become more open-minded to those conversations.

Tony:
I love that.

Family meetings are so important on so many levels: adult kids and parents, parents and kids, siblings, and everyone involved.

Communication helps avoid so many things.

Before we wrap up, could you give us a couple of prompts from the Aging Wishes Guide?

Lauren:
The guide covers the medical side. If something were to happen, what are your wishes?

You see some of that in estate planning.

It may include who you want your care team to be. That gets into powers of attorney, but it goes beyond that.

Who do you want involved in your care?

If you were to need care, what are you open to?

This is where you can talk through scenarios.

Are you open to having a caregiver come into the home? How frequently? Maybe once a week. Would that be okay? Four hours a week. Do we start there?

Have you thought about eventually moving into a senior living community?

If so, would you want that to be sooner so you can create a social network around you?

Or are you adamant that you want to stay in the home?

Then there is the financial side.

Has there been financial planning to support long-term care needs?

Many times, the next generation, the adult children, don’t even know whether their parents have planned for these expenses or whether that will fall on them to cover.

So there are financial, health-related, care-related, and family network-related pieces.

This creates family dynamic challenges too.

If there are multiple adult children, who is going to run point on the coordination of care?

The guide outlines all those different sections and provides a variety of questions or prompts.

Families can say, “Let’s just tackle this one section. Let’s just focus here.”

Once they get warmed up, maybe they move to the financial section and talk about some of those things.

It doesn’t all have to be tackled at once.

Tony:
That’s such a great start.

Lauren, to wrap up, I have what’s called the Get Ready Hot Take Trio. These are three questions I ask all my guests.

The first one is: what is one myth you’re trying to break about care planning?

Lauren:
This is a tough one because it is a little more end-of-life in nature.

People sometimes think that if you start talking about these things, something bad is going to happen. It is like you are wishing it upon yourself.

I think a lot of people understand that is kind of silly, but it is a common myth.

People don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to bring that energy into their life.

But there are so many benefits to the aging adult and to the greater family unit.

If you can start talking about these things, their wishes can be honored.

It makes it a lot easier on family members if there is a crisis call because they understand what Mom, Dad, or Grandma wants, rather than having to guess.

There is a lot of benefit there, but that is a myth I hear sometimes, and I kind of grin.

Tony:
That is so important.

We do need to talk about it. It is hard, and it is not an easy conversation to have, but it is an important conversation.

Actually, it is beyond important. It is critical. It is an essential conversation to have as part of planning.

Lauren, let’s get out the time machine for a minute.

If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now about caregiving, what advice would you give your younger self going through this years ago?

Lauren:
I would have gotten more involved in my own family.

Observing the care and now knowing what goes into care and how stressful and complex it is for family caregivers, I would have stepped in and said, “Let me take this on,” or, “Let me help with this.”

It is kind of like when you have kids.

People reach out and say, “How can I help?” And you’re like, “I can’t even take that on. Just come over and help.”

I would say the same thing when you know a friend or family member is caring for a loved one.

It is hard, especially if they are part of the sandwich generation, caring for an aging loved one while also taking care of young kids at home.

Just go over there.

Go over there and say, “Why don’t you take a break? Let me take this on. Let me get the groceries today. Let me handle the laundry. Let me take Mom, Dad, or Grandma out for a walk.”

Just jump in and help because it really takes a village to support our families through these experiences.

Tony:
That’s great advice.

Raising kids alone is challenging enough, but when you add worrying about and caring for aging parents, it is a lot.

For people watching and listening to the show, I had Jackie Clark on, and we talked about Planet Squeeze, which is exactly that: women raising kids and caregiving for parents at the same time.

How do you make it through that squeeze?

That is such an important topic.

People need relief. Nobody can do it all. It wears on you.

You don’t have to volunteer to become a permanent care team member. As you point out, you can take one doctor’s appointment, run one errand, or give somebody a day off.

That can be a huge help.

Lauren:
It is huge. It really is.

And Jackie is great. She’s part of our high-quality vetted network.

Tony:
Small world.

To wrap up, what’s your number one tip to change the way we think about caregiving?

Lauren:
We have talked a lot about having conversations early.

The other piece is tying it back to the finances.

Working closely with a financial advisor is really important. If you don’t have a financial advisor, I would encourage you to consider finding one.

It doesn’t have to be one with set minimums. A lot of financial advisors these days are doing strictly financial planning work for a flat fee. There are lots of options out there.

Work with a financial advisor to think about the future.

I hear so many stories about families that have not planned for care expenses, and it can create a lot of stress.

You want this care. It is going to make the later chapter much more enjoyable for everyone involved.

But if you have not properly planned financially, you may not be able to access some of these services. We would really hate to see that.

That is the other piece we have not talked as much about: doing the work to plan financially for these needs.

It starts with wishes. It starts with envisioning what that looks like and, if possible, working with a financial professional.

Tony:
For people out there, there are financial coaches, financial planners, financial therapists, and a whole range of people.

If you are listening in a different country, there are people who can assist you with these things.

And Lauren, as you point out, these things are not always a permanent engagement.

You can hire many financial planners and advisors on a one-time fee to create a plan, go through this with you, or meet for a couple of sessions.

It is not necessarily a lifetime commitment or a “move all your assets over to somebody” situation.

Lauren:
That’s right.

There are lots of options.

I’m glad you brought that up because financial advisors, financial coaches, consultants, or anyone with that level of expertise can help.

It is really facilitation.

It is facilitating with the client, and if possible, including the larger family, to start that conversation and create that framework.

Start with the wishes.

Then identify what services may be needed, what the relative costs of those services may be, and build that plan so the entire family has peace of mind, knowing everything is in place and has been communicated properly.

Tony:
I love that. That’s a great place to wrap up.

Where can people learn more about you and Bequest?

Lauren:
Our website provides a lot of information, and there is an opportunity to schedule a platform demo if that is of interest.

The website is thebequest.com. It is spelled T-H-E-B-Q-U-E-S-T dot com, so it is a little different spelling with Bequest.

You can also reach out to me directly at Lauren at thebequest.com.

And you can always find me on LinkedIn at Lauren Tracy Clough.

Tony:
Fantastic.

For people watching and listening, there will be links to Lauren’s website and LinkedIn profile in the show notes.

Lauren, thanks for joining us on Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

Lauren:
Thanks, Tony. I appreciate it.

Tony:
Thank you, everyone, as always, for tuning in to Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

If you learned something today that changed the way you think about caregiving, please be sure to subscribe and share this episode with a friend.

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