Gold Core

The Questions to Ask Before Investing Your Hard Earned Cash!

Published by under Wealth |

We have developed the following questionnaire for you to use when meeting with prospective financial advisers to help you to work through some of the important issues.

Since, ultimately salespeople focus almost exclusively on selling investment and insurance products we believe that it is important to assess an adviser’s core competencies and way of working.
 
We hope that this questionnaire will assist you in evaluating a prospective financial adviser and to avoid some of the pitfalls.
 
1) What is the educational background of your advisers?
2) What are your financial planning credentials/designations and affiliations?
3) How experienced in financial planning are your advisers?
4) Will you provide me with references from other professionals?
5) Have you ever been cited by a professional or regulatory body for disciplinary reasons?
6) How many clients is an adviser expected to look after?
7) Does the adviser work alone, with an associate or part of a team?
8) Do you have a business continuity plan?
9) How is your firm compensated and how is your compensation calculated?
Is it commissions only from selling securities or insurance products?
Is it fee-based?
10) Do you have an agreement describing your compensation and services that will be provided in advance of the engagement?
11) Do you have a minimum size of investment you will deal with?
12) Do you receive referral fees from other professionals such as lawyers, accountants, other brokers?
13) Do you receive on-going income from any of the investments or products that you recommend?
14) Are there financial incentives for you to recommend certain financial products?
15) Do you offer advice on a wide range of financial planning?
16) Do you provide a comprehensive written analysis of my financial situation with recommendations before I commit to purchase any products?
17) Do you offer assistance with the implementation of such a plan?
18) Do you offer continuous, on-going advice regarding my financial affairs, including advice on non-investment related financial planning issues?
19) Other than to debit my account to pay fees, do you take custody of, or will you have access to, my assets?
20) If you were to provide me on-going investment advisory services, do you require “discretionary” trading authority over my investment accounts?
21) Are you regulated by the Financial Regulator?