Are Financial Advisers / Planners worth it?

I would like to discuss the pros & cons of financial Advisers & hear members thoughts.


To start I would like to point out some of the typical disadvantages & Advantages


Disadvantages

-Some advisers cost more than the value provided & implement basic strategies that might not be relevant

-Advisers can only offer products within the APL (approved products) the adviser can offer

-Advisers may not provide options outside of what they can get paid on (sad truth often)

-Advisers can provide advice that may leave the client in a worse position

-Advisers may not consider clients long term goals over the reporting period


Advantages

-An Adviser can assist clients reach their long-term financial goals

-Advisers can implement strategies to protect clients from risk & explain risks of potential avenues

-Advisers can monitor investments & assist restructure investments for clients situation

-Act in the best interest of the client (Advisers have a legal obligation to)

-assess clients Super, Insurances, Investments & provide advice on such

-Provide assistance on the interpretation of tax (within limitations of Tax (financial) advice services)

-diversify risk & provide much needed advice


Advisers can help individuals & entities to move forward financially quicker by providing advice that is specific to them & can improve financial outcomes for clients.

Having an adviser to be there and clarify & prevent pour outcomes & explain pro’s & con’s of your next steps can massively assist reaching your goals.


Love to hear everyone’s thoughts (GOOD OR BAD)

(This is in no way advice, or specific to anyone)

 

Advisors are not a wealth creation strategy. To shoot the lights out from property passive investment (and I include most property investment in this) requires significant risk via leverage that can leave investors with outcomes worse than total loss of capital. How could an advisor with a fiduciary responsibility advise this course of action?

People need to make their own money. Once they have it, advisors can be useful.

 

Once they have it, they generally don't need financial advisors though...

 

I guess its depends how you define need. Thats what HNW Advisors like Koda Capital and Crestone do. You'd be surprised the amount of portfolio management, admin, tax planning that goes on when running multiple investment vehicles...add SMSF, Estate planning, philanthropy etc.

 

Advisers are essential for super as this is a complex area with lots of strategies that can save people lots of money and improve retirement.

The trick is finding an adviser who charges based on time and not a percentage of assets.

 

Is the "financial adviser" providing advice services or product and management services or is there a product service, advice service or a management service ? They arent the same. Once you know what is being consumed then a fair evaluation of cost and benefit can be run. It may even be highly effective for an all-in % based fee rather than piecemeal invoices for specific actions that aggregate to a high charge. Many advisory firms charge what seem like fixed retainer fees rather than hourly charges.

At the end of the day the income must pay for the time. If it doesnt pay a suitable hourly income its not sustainable. How many hours of time do you want with your advice about establishing a SMSF ?

eg
- Advice on establishing a smsf, rollovers and implemenation of new pensions incl reversionary pensions or binding noms
- Implementing docs and transaction based matters for a SMSF v a public fund
- Specific investment advice and placement and ongoing active management of a portfolio of direct investments
- Complex asset acquisition and investment strategies eg LRBF, inspecie property and CGT events
Technically speaking, all is optional. Some people need help and others dont.

In many cases fees reflect hybrid elements eg
- A fee for specific service eg a hour of advice.
- A fee which is not charged to the client at all and is limited to a disclosed fee paid by insurer to the adviser for policy placement. It may be higher or lower than a "hourly fee".
- A base fee with a range of tiers so that an initial fee plus a further volume based amount is charged but it tapes down as more wealth occurs. ie not linear
- A monthly or periodic (annual?) fee which disregards time (ie a fixed all incorporated fee)

 

Hey Mate obviously Advisers are not a strategy, but they can create and provide strategies to help clients reach & navigate to their financial goals.

Yes unfortunately due to most Financial Service licensees in OZ not wanting property assessed & the fact advisers can't make money (generally) off it.
they do not advise on property & swing clients into portfolio's that may not be the "best Interest".

But I do know advisers (such as myself) that actually assess properties & any other potential wealth options the clients want to be assessed for the best interest of the client.

So I would say it's like any other professional, there are good bad & ok ones.