Financial advice? I can do it myself!

I recently posted on LinkedIn about why people choose not to use a financial adviser to help them with their planning.

The post was about affordability, and how some people don't feel like they can afford financial advice.

But the discuss led to this objection.

Why do I need a financial adviser, I can do all this myself can't I?

Great point. Yes, it a lot of instances you can in fact arrange financial products yourself. So, why would you pay for the services of an adviser? 

Here are my thoughts on it: 

What our client feedback is, is that advice from an adviser provides peace of mind. With any subject are there are experts, that know the answers, and implications, andnuances of different decisions.

Yes, you can do things yourself, but a conversation with an adviser can underline that with: yes, that’s right, or have you thought about this….

With consultations being free of charge, I think most people would get some benefit from speaking to an adviser, even if it’s just to confirm that what they have is suitable for what they want to achieve.

Also, play to your strengths, experts in any subject are efficient and knowledgeable, doing it yourself can lead to it being more convoluted, or piecemeal. For example: if I tried to design and make branding material for our business, yes, I could do it. The result would be ok. It would probably take me a while, and I’d be happy with the result. If I went to an expert to do that, they’d be quicker, the result would be better, and ultimately with time wasted it would probably be more cost-effective for them to do it anyway.

Product-specific examples would be Insurance, yes you can do that yourself, but do you have the experience to know which company is RIGHT for you based on height, weight, past medical history etc. Probably not, you’re likely to go with the one that says it’s the cheapest, but I’d know that if a client has a high BMI by the time they have applied with the ‘cheapest’ the premium will have increased and there will be exclusions, and another provider would have just accepted them on normal rates.

There are instances where we advise our clients to do things themselves, only after they understand their situation, and implications of any decision though. 

A good adviser will always give you the option 'you can do this yourself, or we can do it at x cost for you.

In the case of pension transfers, we always inform our clients that amalgamation of pension is something they can often do themselves, most of them however prefer to pay thecharges for an expert to do it, that gives them peace of mind that it has beendone properly.

Do follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarniaelsworth/ I love hearing peoples views and experiences around financial advice.