Financial Planning/Financial Advice

Linton

bill_on_line wrote: »

Linton wrote: »

My opinion - how do you know what financial products are most suitable unless you can show what they achieve under various assumptions?

Hi Linton

We used product illustrations with 3 different growth rates, to show some possibilities if plan was kept in force.

I agree not as nearly comprehensive as cash flow modeling, but most customers could not stomach the premiums in more negative senarios.

Bill

Life is more complex than simply showing 3 different growth rates. Perhaps not always as complex as my situation outlined earlier, but on this forum for example we often have people wanting to retire before their main pension becomes available, and wanting to leave a tidy sum to their kids. Sorting that out and showing the inter-relationships of amount saved/ earliest retirement date/ money left at end of life is something I would expect a financial advisor to be able to handle.

From your comments I am not sure you see the difference I see between a salesman of financial products and a financial advisor. In particular I would worry about your comment about customers not being happy with negative scenarios. Clearly not a good thing for a salesman to raise but a responsible advisor surely must do it.

jamesd

It would be good to mention such things but it's also reality, I'm sure, that most customers would not want to face some realities. I expect - and hope - that it's truly engaged customers who can gain most from the what if scenario modelling that these tools can provide.