How do I find a decent IFA?

silverfoxuk

I am married and my son is 4 weeks old. We have no will and no life insurance, critical illness etc so I think I need to speak with an IFA who can carry out a full review and make some suggestions for a young family.

I'd rather pay a fee for advice than commission. How do I find a decent IFA, any special qualifications I should look for? none of my work colleagues has any recommendations - are there any websites out there i can look at to start me off?...

Money_Watch

The best place to start is http://www.unbiased.co.uk - put in your postcode and it will give you a list of local IFAs. You can filter by fee/commission based, specify male / female etc. etc.

It's also worth asking family or friends if they've had any experience with certain IFAs.

dunstonh

THe transactions you are looking at would mean an IFA is actually over qualified if they have just the basic qualification as it all comes under general insurance.

All IFAs have to offer a fee option. You cannot be called an IFA if you do not. So, ignore that filter. Also, be wary filtering by qualification. The filter is flawed as it will only show IFAs with that qualification. It will not show someone with an equal or higher alternative (there have been different versions of qualification over the years).