Many independent financial advisors are saying that the crises at Lehman Brothers Holdings, Merrill Lynch and American International Group (AIG), as well as the ensuing market turmoil, may not affect their clients directly—unless, that is, they are employed at these or other major financial services firms.

"We have clients who work for these firms," says Diahann Lassus of Lassus Wherley & Associates in New Providence, N.J., and the new president of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). "They're caught up in this, and they're understandably concerned."

Lassus took precautions with these clients prior to today's events, discussing with them how their jobs could potentially be impacted by the turmoil in the financial sector throughout this year. She spoke to them about what they need to be looking at in terms of cash reserves and what their options were should events such as today's occur, Lassus says.

Cary Carbonaro, president of Family Financial Research, a financial advisory firm based in Long Island, N.Y., and Florida, has several clients who work for both Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. She has been in nonstop communication with these clients and their spouses since late Sunday night in an effort to assure them of a secure future in what to some is burgeoning into the most terrifying of days.

While she pulled many of these clients out of their company stock more than a year ago, Carbonaro says, they still have underwater options and many of their 401(k)s still hold some company matching stock.

One issue is that clients do not understand which financial instruments may be at risk—so they think everything is. A client called Carbonaro asking if he should be worried about his term insurance policy with troubled AIG. She told him absolutely not. "Even if they went under, somebody will buy out the policy or take over the insurance. In the worst-case scenario, it is covered by the insurance fund, so there's no need to worry. If they had stock it would be a different story.

Many of Lassus' clients are wondering whether the custodians they're working with are going to be affected. Since most of her business is done through discount brokers, the fall of the troubled investment banks' should have no effect on the custodians. The hard part, however, is translating this to fearful clients.

"When they talk about Merrill Lynch, they see a broker is a broker so they're automatically going to ask those questions and make sure they understand. Right after [the near demise of] Bear Stearns, we sent out something that explained that here's the way these custodians operate and here's the protections you have and here's the difference. We're sending these out again with a different introduction to make sure people do understand what the differences are. We must make sure they don't worry about something they don't need to."

But for Carbonaro, many of her clients' fears lie in the unknown and the looming unease of a potential market collapse. She even had clients call her from vacation in Canada this morning, asking her what they should do if today were to turn out to be another Black Monday.

"They're fearful because this is such a double, triple whammy," Carbonaro says. "A lot of my client base is Gen Xers, so you're talking about 30- or 40-somethings who are in nice mid-career jobs with good salaries and young kids at home. Their house value has dropped recently and now everything else is going down and prices are going up. Then if you throw in the fact that this is their livelihood, it's more of just a general fear."

Carbonaro, like most advisors, is not changing her strategy amidst this previously unthinkable reorganization of Wall Street. "I've been giving them tips on spending less, shoring up their emergency funds, watching expenses, making sure they're following the strategies that I've given them. Things haven't changed, we just have to get through this cycle and, of course, think long-term, which nobody wants to do."