Questions to Ask Your Financial Advisor
Questions to Ask a Financial Planner:
• Do you do comprehensive financial planning?
• Do you work for an insurance company, investment company, or a broker-dealer that manufactures insurance or investment products?
• Are you compensated by fees, commissions, or both? If fee, do you charge a flat fee or an hourly rate?
• If commission, does that offset the fees?
• What is your process and how many times will we meet?
• How many clients do you have?
• Do you think it is good to pay off my house by retirement?
Questions to Ask an Investment Advisor or Consultant:
• What is your experience with investing?
• What professional certifications do you hold?
• How are you compensated? Fees? Commissions? A combination of fees and commissions?
• What is your investment philosophy?
• Once you have invested client assets, how do you monitor investment performance?
• How do you integrate a biblical world-view into your investment philosophy?
• How do you determine whether or not a client should be investing, and what is your process for selecting the most appropriate investment options?
• How often do your clients get statements of their investment holdings?
• Where are your clients’ investments held? A brokerage firm? A mutual fund? Which one?
• If a brokerage firm or mutual fund holds your clients’ investments, does the brokerage firm or fund charge separate fees for this?
• How often do you report performance to your clients?
• What type of investments do you use? Load or no-load mutual funds? Stocks? Bonds? Annuities?
• Do you consider the impact of income taxes on investments choices made for a client?
• How and how often do you communicate with your clients? Phone? Live? Mail? Email? Newsletters?
• Do you provide other financial services beyond investments? What are those services?
Questions to Ask a CPA:
• Have you helped a client in a similar situation?
• If you in need of financial planning, ask about their experience in that specific area.
• What are the nature, scope, and timing in completing the proposed assignment?
• Will my company and/or I be serviced by you, a partner or by junior accountants?
• What is your opinion of fling bankruptcy; use offshore trusts, aggressive tax-shelters?
• Can you tell me a little about your practices, and your successes and failures?
• How are your fees calculated?
• What can I do to help you with your work and keep your fees to a minimum?
• How will you be communicating the results of your work to me?
• Do you perceive any conflicts of interests?
• How long have you been a Certified Public Accountant, and what other licenses do you hold?
• How conservative are you in interpreting tax laws and regulations and accounting and auditing standards?
Questions to Ask an Insurance Professional:
• Are you required to recommend a particular company’s insurance policies?
• Does your company pay you higher compensation for recommending their proprietary products?
• How many companies do you represent? What is the rating of those companies? Rating agencies include AM Best, Standard & Poors, and Weiss.
• What is the breakdown and the percentage of your business coming from insurance commissions?
• Can you provide a breakdown of what percentage of your insurance income comes from the various lines of insurance, e.g.--life, disability, long-term care, health insurance, auto, home, and annuities?
Questions to Ask an Attorney Doing Gift and Estate Tax Planning:
Experience
• How long have you been in practice?
• Can you tell me a little about your practice?
• How many lawyers in your firm?
• What is your client base made up of?
• What percentage of your clients is Christian/non-Christian?
• What are your areas of specialty?
• Have you handled complex situations?
• Give me an example of some of the complex cases you have handled.
• Have you handled many cases in my area of need (estate planning, business succession, tax planning, etc)?
Services
• Will you or an associate of yours work with me?
• How long will it take for you to do my work?
• How responsive are you to my calls and questions?
• How timely is your work generally done?
Referrals
• Do you have clients with similar situations like mine who might be willing to speak with me about your services?
• Do you have other professionals that might be willing to speak to me about your services?
Reputation
• Are you in good standing with your local bar association?
• Have you ever been cited by a professional governing body for disciplinary reasons?
• What other outside activities are you involved in?
Compensation
• Do you charge for initial consultations?
• How are your fees calculated?
• Can the fee arrangements be set forth in writing before the engagement begins?
• What are your hourly rates?
• What are the hourly rates of your associates?
• Will you be charging me for every phone conversation and/or meeting?
• What do you project my costs would be for your services?
• What can I do to help you with your work and keep your fees to a minimum?
Questions to Ask an Enrolled Agent:
• Have you helped a client in a similar situation?
• What are the nature, scope, and timing in completing the proposed assignment? What will the fees be?
• Will my company and/or I be serviced by you, a partner or by junior accountants?
• What is your opinion of filing bankruptcy; using offshore trusts, or aggressive tax-shelters?
• Can you tell me a little about your practices, and your successes and failures?
• How are your fees calculated?
• What can I do to help you with your work and keep your fees to a minimum?
• How will you be communicating the results of your work to me?
• Do you perceive any conflicts of interests?
• How long have you been an Enrolled Agent, and what other licenses do you hold?
• Are you conservative or aggressive in interpreting tax laws and regulations, and accounting and auditing standards?