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?