# Financial Advisor wants six monthly reviews rather than yearly ones?



## faolteam (1 Apr 2012)

He keeps wanting to review my pensions and serious illnes cover and life assurance now every 6 months instead of a year 

Is this necessary ?


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## LDFerguson (2 Apr 2012)

While it is prudent to review your finances at regular intervals, reviewing every six months seems excessive.  Why don't you tell your advisor that you want to leave such reviews at once a year?


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## Bronte (2 Apr 2012)

Are you charged for the reviews. Do you change policies/investments after the reviews.


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## Spear (2 Apr 2012)

Is he an advisor or a seller?


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## mercman (2 Apr 2012)

Spear said:


> Is he an advisor or a seller?



Is there a difference ??

OP, In case you weren't aware, these people earn their income from commission selling. The more you change policies the more they make. I'm not sure what part of the country you are in, but I have seen similar instances where the advice offered was to change broker.


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## Dave Vanian (2 Apr 2012)

mercman said:


> Is there a difference ??


 
Yes there is.  A seller is only interested in selling product.  An advisor is interested in being remunerated for advice.  The latter is preferable.


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## faolteam (2 Apr 2012)

*No he works for*

Life and Pensions ltd

last year i had a pension policy with friends first and the retirement age was 70 which i never should have took at that age so he put it into a Irish life pension that i would get when im 65 

and he keeps going on about serious illness cover which at this stage i don't want 

as i am paying about 36 euro a month for serious illness cover and life cover as well


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## mercman (3 Apr 2012)

Not sure where the co mentioned is based. But the examples stated are the highest commission earning in the business. Whilst your situation is being assessed he's making a packet from you. Perhaps you should consider finding a different adviser.


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## Bronte (3 Apr 2012)

It's unclear what exact policies you had.  Initially you had a pension policy which paid out at 65.  Then last year you cancelled this and bought a new one that pays out at 70.  In addition you have serious illness cover costing 36 Euro and your advisor thinks you should buy another serious illness policy.  Does he think you should cancel the first policy.


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## faolteam (3 Apr 2012)

*i will explain it here,*



Bronte said:


> It's unclear what exact policies you had.  Initially you had a pension policy which paid out at 65.  Then last year you cancelled this and bought a new one that pays out at 70.  In addition you have serious illness cover costing 36 Euro and your advisor thinks you should buy another serious illness policy.  Does he think you should cancel the first policy.



This is what happened i will just change the name of the insurance companies to
protect my identity,

I had a policy with  Canada Life and i got my full money when i became 70, after thinking about it i felt that 70 was a bit long so i said it to my financial advisor  broker of whom i had a pension policy with Zurich and he suggested we transfer the Canada Life Pension into Zurich   and it would mature at 65 

At the same time i reduced my serious illnes cover if i was honest i would have got rid of it full stop,but he kept saying its very important etc and that if you dont have it at 48-49 you wont be able to get serious life cover at 50???
 and i did question him about the  life cover saying that 50,000 was far to much and that i wanted it brought down to cover me for 20,000 max  as i had learnt the hard way how much it cost to bury people etc , but he would not have told me to do this .


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## Bronte (4 Apr 2012)

So you were unhappy with your Canada Life policy as it paid out at 70 and you went to your broker and asked for a new policy to pay out 5 years earlier.  That is the way I read your comments.  That is was you who was unhappy and requested a change?  Are you happy with your new policy?

One thing for sure, chopping and changing policies cost somebody and that would be you. But if you requested the change I do not see why you are complaining?

Why did you initially take a policy that paid out at 70?  How many years ago did you take this policy?


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## faolteam (4 Apr 2012)

Bronte said:


> So you were unhappy with your Canada Life policy as it paid out at 70 and you went to your broker and asked for a new policy to pay out 5 years earlier.  That is the way I read your comments.  That is was you who was unhappy and requested a change?  Are you happy with your new policy?
> 
> One thing for sure, chopping and changing policies cost somebody and that would be you. But if you requested the change I do not see why you are complaining?
> 
> Why did you initially take a policy that paid out at 70?  How many years ago did you take this policy?



Ok well when I took the one out with Zurich I used a different broker  ,i was a bit younger and it never occured to me about my age been 70 retirement , A few years ago this new advisor said at the time that my policy with Zurich was not enough and that he recommened I take one out with Canada life, which I did ,

It was only then I realized about the 65 , but I waited a few years and one of those meetings we had I said it to him about the 65 and I said to him it’s a pity I didn’t say 65 at the time , and  he said to me I will look into it and see if we can put the zurich one into Canada life and then the retirement age 65 , I do agree with u I was a bit weary about losing and if im honest im not sure if I did 

i took out Zurich in 1991 and canda life in 2004


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## Baracuda (5 Apr 2012)

> I had a policy with Canada Life and i got my full money when i became 70, after thinking about it i felt that 70 was a bit long so i said it to my financial advisor broker of whom i had a pension policy with Zurich and he suggested we transfer the Canada Life Pension into Zurich and it would mature at 65


Surely there was another reason to move your pension fund from one provider to another, could you not have asked your existing provider to reduce the normal retirement age to 65. You can infact take retirement benefits at age 60 from any personal pension.


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## faolteam (5 Apr 2012)

Baracuda said:


> Surely there was another reason to move your pension fund from one provider to another, could you not have asked your existing provider to reduce the normal retirement age to 65. You can infact take retirement benefits at age 60 from any personal pension.




I was never led to believe i could do that.

i presumed if i did that  would mean that i would loose out by surrendering earlier .

Am i not right in saying that if u surrender earlier than the chosen time u would loose out ???


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## Baracuda (6 Apr 2012)

Some older pension contracts that were sold in the late 80s and 90s had early surrender charges alright and had a automatic normal retirement age of 70. They also had a very complicated charging structure and at first glance it would seem like a no brainer to switch to a new pension contract. But if you looked a little further you would see that they offered regular bonuses on the fund value the longer you left your pension fund with your provider.

So it could be the case that you could not reduce the NRA on this type of pension but when you factor in bonuses it usually offsets the higher charges. So this reason on its own is usually a poor reason to move pension funds to another provider as there is usually a huge exit penality to transfer to another provider

If you ring Zurich life, you can ask them if there was early exit penality applied to the final transfer value. Even if there was it may still have been a good financial decision to move as your broker may have been able to give you extra allocation to the new pension or indeed reduce the overall charges that you were paying.

You should talk to your advisor about all of your concerns and explain why you feel you are over insured and why there is a need to meet every 6 months etc. If you are still not happy with the advisor you should ask your family of a friend to recommend a good financial advisor


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