Is your relationship with your financial planner really as important as the one with your husband or wife?
Well, almost, says Continuum’s Martin Brown. He tells leading business journalist Ruth Sunderland why the client-financial planner relationship can be one of the most rewarding in someone’s entire life.
Yet ninety percent of Britons don’t have a financial planner and miss out on the benefits completely. Brown argues it’s high time that changed.
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RS: Martin, you have told me that around nine out of ten people in the UK don’t have a financial planner. Why is that?
MB: It comes down to three core issues. One is knowledge, one is access, and one is trust. People aren’t aware of what they don’t know in terms of their finances. They don’t wake up this morning and say: ‘I must do something with my pension. I must do something about my savings. I must do something on my long-term financial plans.’ There is not enough financial education that is easy to understand and readily available. There is also an issue of people wrongly believing they are not wealthy enough for financial advice. Everybody in the UK is entitled to financial advice. They, and the country will be better off as a result of that. But there is this false impression that people need to be rich.
RS: How big a role can a financial planner play in a client’s life, and how valuable can that relationship be?
MB: A good planner is a behavioural coach, he or she is someone who is known to the whole family and is held in high esteem. A good financial planner, in my view, should be held in the same esteem as a good medical practitioner, who will help save people’s lives and improve the quality of their life. A good financial planner does that in a different way: financially. If you build a relationship with them and you trust them enough to open up and talk about your aspirations and goals, then they can help you to realise your hopes.
RS: So are you saying it is one of the most important relationships in a person’s life?
MB: Well outside of marriage and family, it is one of the most important relationships someone should have. If you think of divorce rates, which are very high. That comes about often because of a relationship breakdown due to finances. Maybe one partner is running up debts, maybe spending too much. When people are not managing their finances it creates cracks in relationships. Then marriages break down, because financial issues are chipping away. Just because you are financially secure it doesn’t guarantee eternal happiness but it de-risks your position.
RS: Maybe it can be a better class of misery?
MB: Yes!
RS: Should clients be looking for a long-term relationship with a financial planner from the outset?
MB: Yes, it’s the ongoing relationship that’s where the most value comes in. When you take on a financial planner, it should be for life, for a lifetime planning relationship. You only get one chance in life. You just need to make that first step, make that first call to a financial planner. If you find the right one at the right time, you will be able to embark on a journey that should be a rewarding one.
RS: Quite a few financial planners seem to be getting on in years. Would you recommend it as a career for younger people?
MB: I would say that I think financial planning and advice is a wonderful profession to be in. We’re seeing a lot of new talent coming to the market. It is wonderful to help people save money, make money, protect their families, achieve their financial objectives and what they want in life. It is a wonderful profession and for good planners it is more than that, it is a vocation.
FACTS AND FIGURES
9 out of 10 adults in the UK do not have a financial adviser. Source: Financial Lives 2024 survey | FCA
An ageing profession. Number of advisers aged:
- Under 25: 254
- 50-59: 10,370
- Over 60: 6800 (rounded up)
3% a year – value added by full financial planning. Source: Cautious optimism as young adviser numbers start to grow
