'Independent' financial advice... where? how?

darkpool

how can advice be truly independent if the salesman, sorry IFA, gets commission for selling certain products and not others.

my dad changed pension and the salesman, sorry team of financial experts, got 50k. then 6 months later they wanted him to change pension again so they would get more commission.

dunstonh

how can advice be truly independent if the salesman, sorry IFA, gets commission for selling certain products and not others.

If you think there is the potential for bias then go fee based.

my dad changed pension and the salesman, sorry team of financial experts, got 50k. then 6 months later they wanted him to change pension again so they would get more commission.

Pension providers have clawbacks. Typically 5-7 years. This is to prevent this sort of thing from happening. The only time it doesnt have a clawback is on fee based contracts but you said this was commission. So, they couldnt have generated an additional commission as you have said.

As for changing pensions years down the road then it is quite possible, indeed probable. In 2001 it was all mono charged pensions thanks to the introduction of stakeholder. However, by around 2004/5, you started to get decent multi-charged pensions in which were cheaper than stakeholder. Now you are getting pensions which are RDR compliant and these are cheaper still.