Financial advice

Hi all, please feel free to move this if it's not in the right forum!

Does anyone else find it hard to understand the financial advise out there? DH and I had a talk with an advisor in our bank about the life insurance we took out when getting the mortgage, and I'm still not very clear about it. We are paying ~€110 a month for life cover of 170 k and serious illness of 90 k (approx), which seems rather expensive, and not really in line with what we need. The high cost is to offsett the premium rising in later years as we get older apparently????

The other thing that happened recently is that there was a financial services company that had a series of meetings with people in work. I went to talk to an advisor, but appart from advising to move our mortgage to a tracker mortgage (which we have been thinking of doing for a while) and filling in a form to do that, and sending out information on education savings plans (?) he didn't really give any general advice, and I was left with the feeling that he was just trying to sell stuff, and that I would be better off doing my own research.

Is this a common experiance? I'm off to reread the key posts now, and try to make sense of them, but I thought I could talk to the 'proffesionals' (SP) and get advice, but I haven't had that experiance...

They aren't financial advisors, they're salespeople. You need to speak to an independant advisor with no ties to any company or their products.

Would I be as well off to try and think my way through my finances myself? Can a broker negotiate a better deal with the bank than the tracker rate? I'm a bit wary of 'advisors' at this stage (though since I paid nothing for this advice, I definitely got what I paid for!!).

terrysgirl33 said:

Would I be as well off to try and think my way through my finances myself? Can a broker negotiate a better deal with the bank than the tracker rate?

Click to expand...

Normally a tracker of 0.8% to 1% over the base rate is as good as it gets and cannot be bettered.

There is plenty of stuff here that will help you understand matters and the best ways to shop around for the best deals suitable to your needs. If you do need advice then make sure that you go to an independent advisor (e.g. authorised advisor or good multi-agency intermediary) and not a tied agent as above!

Thanks! Now I just have to get my head around everything!!!!!

Not sure if it's any good (I've never used the service), but worth thinking about if your still feeling a little unsure on what to do/where to go next.

Free consultation available here from a member of Providence Finance Services.

Providence said:

As one of Ireland's leading independent finance advisory companies, we can offer you one of the largest and most comprehensive range of [broken link removed], [broken link removed] and [broken link removed] services through our network of highly experienced Providence advisers without bias to any one supplier.

Click to expand...

[No connection with Providence or Money Doctor]