Getting Started is our video series aimed at first-time investors, featuring JONATHAN HOLLOW. This time, we ask: do investors really need the assistance of a financial adviser, or can they just go it alone?
TRANSCRIPT
In our book, How to Fund the Life You Want, Robin Powell and I argue that almost everyone in the UK will need a financial advisor on some topic at some point in their life. For example, financial advisers are very good at explaining the complexities of the tax and pension system. Or they can help you think about the inheritance implications of particular investment choices.
The key question is whether you really need a financial adviser managing all of your money all of the time. If you can read our book, you can definitely manage a simple portfolio of mainly passive investments, but you might want to outsource the hassle to a financial adviser.
Or you might need what we call a financial bodyguard: someone to help you stop taking rash decisions when markets fall. But the average fee charged by advisers for ongoing money management is 0.8% of the assets they control. For most people, that will feel like a lot of money. In our book, we devote a whole chapter to how to find a really first rate adviser, but we also point out some of the great free information and guidance that you can get that will answer a lot of your questions –questions you might have paid a financial adviser to answer for you.
ABOUT JONATHAN HOLLOW
JONATHAN HOLLOW worked for the UK Government’s Money and Pensions Service and is a writer and commentator on consumer education and protection. He is the co-author, with Robin Powell, of the award-winning book How to Fund the Life You Want, which is published by Bloomsbury.
© The Evidence-Based Investor MMXXIV. All rights reserved. Unauthorised use and/ or duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited.