Hi Northdrum, I'm not a financial advisor however from a customer perspective I would always seek out a broker that charges a fee for the advice and is not getting a commission for pushing a certain product.
I think the brokers that operate in this way and then refund any commissions payable on the product sale back to the customer are probably the best positioned.
So you charge a fee for the advice and then refund any commissions (in full) back to the customer. This seems the fairest and most transparent all round.
Hi BetterBiz,
Thanks for the reply. Yeh I know what you are saying, Ideally financial advisors would have fees (like other professional services) with no comission payable thereafter, believe me when I say most of us would love that. Sometimes I do an awful lot of work with little or no financial reward . .
What I would say is that Comission generally (if ever) doesnt effect the price a person pays for certain products.
If anything if you walk in off the street you could potentially end up paying more for a product then by going through a financial adviser as F.A's can get better deals off their affiliated companies & companies normally dont reduce premiums/quotes just because you go straight to them. Whether comission is payable on policies taken through F.A's or not, the companies will of had this factored into the cost of the policy in the first place.
I think that the day when certain advisers chose certain companies soley for comission purposes is gone or nearly gone. Tied Agents can only sell from the company they are tied to (like the salespeople in banks) whereas Financial Advisors normally have several agencies with differant companies so they can negotiate better deals for the clients and get the best deals for them (and most F.A's are good hard working professionals that work off the idea that the better the quality of service and the better the deal for their client, the more refferals they will get).
You see I agree with your idea in principle, but its just difficult to know where to start when discussing the changing of charges.
If I was to say to you that you can either pay me €500 up front fee for certain services/advice or you could spread it out in the cost of a policy over x years where you practically wouldnt notice it, it sort of puts the situation into context.