What does advice cost

What does advice cost is a question we get asked a lot of course.

People rightly want to know how much financial advice will cost before making the decision to go ahead with an advisor. For something so important, it’s surprising how many financial advice firms do not answer the question what does advice cost on their website. In fact, Unbiased found that 70% of advice firms don’t publish their charges on their website. The FCA say the figure is as low as only 14% of firms. This is despite the fact that 55% of people say they want to know what the fees and charges are when they are shopping around for advice.

We do of course and have done for years. We believe that transparency is key in any client relationship.

Accessing our expertise comes at a price. We charge for our services on the basis of a percentage of investments under advice, with a minimum and maximum fee. The percentage charge is applied on a tiered basis according to the value of your investments under advice.

So, what do you get for your money?

We provide you with an initial consultation free of charge up to 1 hour.  We will discuss the costs and levels of our services both initially and throughout our relationship with you.

Our charges include:

• Gathering information about your existing financial arrangements and full personal circumstances.
• Understanding your investment knowledge and attitude and tolerance towards investment risk.
• Understanding your needs, objectives, aspirations and priorities.
• Evaluating your current financial position.
• Developing a financial plan to meet your needs, objectives, aspirations and priorities.
• Recommendation of an asset allocation model that matches your risk profile and the subsequent assessment and suitability of any existing holdings.
• Preparation of our recommendations to you.
• Full written report documenting our recommendations.
• Subsequent appointments to explain and discuss our recommendations in detail, and further appointments if required.

Should you instruct us to proceed with any of our recommendations we will act for you in the following ways:

• Manage all fund and policy administration on your behalf.
• Provide regular updates to keep you informed of progress.
• Ensure all your documents are issued in line with your expectations.
• Provide confirmation of all actions taken on your behalf in writing.

After the initial advice process there will then normally be ongoing servicing costs to consider.

Ongoing advice fees

Your financial objectives may change over time due to changes in your lifestyle or circumstances. We believe it is essential to ensure that your portfolio continues to meet your lifestyle and investment objectives.  Our on-going review and management service offers:

• Structured reviews to give you peace of mind.
• Assessment of your current circumstances and any changes to your plans that are needed.
• Regular updates and information regarding your holdings.
• A choice of differing levels of support depending on your needs.
• Ongoing support with correspondence and administration issues.

We recognise that all clients do not have the same service requirements, so you are free to choose the level of service that best suits your needs. However, some service levels will not be suitable for more complex clients and your adviser will guide on the most suitable service level for you accordingly.

Our charges are guaranteed not to increase within the first 12 months of your contract with us. Should we need to increase our charges after this period you will be given notice of the changes and the opportunity to decide whether to continue with the revised level of charges.

It should be noted that it is not compulsory for you to agree to one of our services and we do offer a transactional only service which is free of charge but does provide limited characteristics.

Any change to the level of services throughout this agreement will result in a pro-rata charge being applied.

* This service level is not suitable for the majority of clients including for example:

• Client who are 5 years or less away from planned retirement.
• Clients who have entered into flexi-access drawdown.
• Clients with a potential inheritance tax liability or other complex requirements.

We charge for our services on the basis of a percentage of your investments, with a minimum and maximum fee.

But what does advice cost isn’t the most important consideration

Again, according to the latest Unbiased survey, the expertise of the adviser is the most important consideration. Followed by trust and personal connection. Then how easy it is to understand the adviser, closely followed by the number of reviews and recommendations they have.

Price is the next on the list. Way down the priorities. In fact, nearly 80% of clients said that they thought the advice fees represented good value for money.

Get more information.

If you are wondering what does advice cost, then why not contact Christina today. She offers a free initial meeting to discuss your requirements and explain how our service works. You are under no obligation to use us after that if you don’t want to and we won’t pester you.

So why not call us today on 01282 614444 or e mail us enquiries@ccfps.co.uk or use our contact form online.