What Do I Do When My Financial Adviser Can’t Cope

The financial press have seen what appears to be an increasing number of articles on financial advisory firms that have been having service issues, typically caused by the departure of financial advice and administration staff.

As someone who understands the financial services profession, I gather than many of these firms have been hit by claims, and other issues due to the quality of the defined benefit (DB) advice they have given historically.

I have commented before and this advice has often lead to individuals being advised to transfer out of their valuable defined benefit pension schemes, often against their best interests.

Inundated with claims and with concerns over the future for the company; clients, administrative staff and advisers have left which further puts strain on those who have remained. These articles talk about declining service standards and taking very long times for firms to get back to clients with routine enquiries or annual reviews or other advice matters.

Many individuals will have built up a relationship with their adviser over many years and be understandably concerned when they leave a firm, particularly if they do not know the contact to whom they are passed, or worse if they feel they are languishing “between the cracks”. It is certainly a big commitment of time and emotional energy to move to another firm, but often, counter intuitive as it may be, this is the best plan.

There are many firms that have not become embroiled in the pensions issues I describe above and we are one of them. We also believe in building a business that is scalable, and offers continuity of service through a multi advisory, and multi support resource structure.

This means the client will have a named adviser, names of support staff as well as a back up adviser for any time that the main adviser is not available, as well as a back up support person and the details of our client liaison manager who has overall responsibility for our high quality service delivery.

We are a firm who pride ourselves on our service, and responsive to client needs with a financial planning service that typically evolves around one annual strategic meeting and as much contact as any individual requires through the year, at no additional cost, be that phone, email, web conference or in our office. If you are concerned about the service you are receiving (or not receiving) at another firm please do not hesitate to get in contact as we will typically bear the cost of an initial discussion to help understand your concerns and what we might to do to allay any of your fears.