How do you make the most of your financial adviser?

Getting the most from a financial adviser comes down to five things: communicate your goals clearly, build trust early, understand exactly what you're paying and why, insist on an annual review and stay proactive between meetings. Boring Money's own research found 73% of advised UK adults said they had complete trust in their adviser and 86% were satisfied - but that trust is earned by knowing what to ask before, during, and after you sign up.

When do I need a financial adviser?

You're most likely to need a financial adviser at major money decisions - retirement, pension consolidation, estate and tax planning - or after a big life change like divorce or bereavement.

There are times in your life when it’s wise to seek help from a financial adviser. These are when you’re weighing up meaty decisions about your money. For example, when you’re approaching retirement, considering pension consolidation, or figuring out your estate and tax planning.

It can also be a good idea to speak to a financial adviser if your life changes in a big way, such as following the death of a partner or a divorce. Working out the best way to navigate these ‘life events’ can be confusing and stressful to say the least – often made worse by complex financial rules and jargon - so it may be a good idea to get extra help from an expert if you find yourself faced with a major shake-up in your life.

However, there are many events and circumstances which can trigger the need to seek financial advice.

What can a financial adviser actually help with?

A financial adviser can cover more than investments, including mortgages, insurance, pensions, savings, ISAs, inheritance, equity release, will planning and more general family finances.

For investments, you may want to seek the help of an investment professional rather than a financial adviser. If you have over £300k to invest you might want to seek out discretionary fund management (DFM), where an expert does bespoke portfolio management.

For smaller amounts of investments, you will need to understand if the adviser you are using is whole of market or allied to a specific platform and the products available on that, in which case they are offering restricted advice. Your banks or building societies may also be able to provide information about some products as well.

An independent financial adviser (IFA) will have access to a wide range of products, and can likely highlight a greater number of suitable options than if you are researching for yourself. Their advice can give you the confidence to act. And when it comes to investments, your adviser will help you make the most of the tax freebies you can access from HMRC.

People are dealing with more complexity than they used to. Frozen tax thresholds, pension rule changes, higher interest rates on savings and mortgages, and market volatility all mean the cost of getting things wrong, or simply doing nothing, has gone up. A good adviser earns their fee by helping you avoid the mistakes and missed opportunities that are easy to make on your own, and by keeping you focused on the long-term consequences of decisions rather than short-term noise.

Samantha SecombFinancial Adviser

What are the 5 things you should do to get the most out of your financial adviser?

To get the most from your financial adviser, communicate your goals clearly, build trust early, understand exactly what you're paying, insist on an annual review and stay proactive between meetings.

1. Communicate your financial goals

When you have your initial meeting, your adviser will conduct a Fact Find – which consists of a detailed questionnaire into all aspects of your finances. The answers you provide will help them to identify your financial goals, a detailed picture of your current financial situation – income and expenditure – and your attitude to risk, which will inform the types of products you should look at if you’re considering investing.

2. Establish a sense of trust

When the subject is money, trust is essential - however Boring Money research in 2025 shows this may be easier said than done for people who haven’t experienced advice. And it’s a bit of a vicious circle, as in fact this lack of trust is the biggest barrier to seeking advice - 14% of respondents told us their lack of trust in financial advisers prevented them from taking advice, a decrease from 16% in 2023.

However for advised adults, it’s a totally different story with 73% saying they had complete trust in their adviser, and 86% of people who currently have an adviser are satisfied with them. 71% of respondents also have never switched advisers and are not considering to switch in the future.

So, is it possible to build a connection with a client to ensure they don't switch to a different adviser?

Honestly, that's not something to engineer directly, it's a byproduct of doing the work properly. Financial planning is a big commitment for both sides. Getting to know a client well enough to craft advice that actually fits their life takes time and openness. Once that foundation is there, the relationship tends to get easier and more valuable each year, because the adviser's knowledge of the client deepens rather than resetting. Clients stay not because they're locked in, but because starting that process again from scratch with someone new has a real cost, and because the relationship keeps paying off.

Samantha SecombFinancial Adviser

When asked what they value most in a financial adviser, advised customers mentioned the following: fee transparency, which accounts for 47%, followed by unbiased advice (45%), human element (41%) and recommendations in best interest (37%).

Be wary if someone can only recommend products from a single company, or if you can't get a straight answer about how they're paid. Vague or evasive answers about fees, an unwillingness to explain the reasoning behind a recommendation, or pressure to decide quickly are all worth pausing on. A good adviser should be comfortable being asked hard questions.

Samantha SecombFinancial Adviser

Before you sign up with a firm, it’s important to know the answers to the following:

1. Is your adviser independent or restricted? If they’re independent, this means they look at the whole of market when it comes to products and providers - so you get more choice. Restricted advisers look at a more limited range.

2. Check they are what they say they are. Is your financial adviser authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)? If not, they can only sell unregulated products (wine, art, property) which means your money is completely unprotected. Steer clear. The best qualified people to help you with your money are either chartered IFAs or certified financial planners.

3. How are they paid? Financial advisers are regulated and do not get paid commission on what they sell. They also have to act in your best interests. However, clarity on the charging structure for your adviser is important and there is much confusion on this topic which we have tackled in more detail below.

Look for someone who is genuinely independent, meaning they research the whole market rather than being contractually tied to one company's products. Ask directly who they're paid by. It should be you, the client, not a product provider paying commission behind the scenes, because that changes whose interests they're serving. A good adviser also starts by listening. At the outset you're the expert on your own life, your goals, your worries, your finances. Their expertise only becomes useful once they've properly understood yours.

Samantha SecombFinancial Adviser

3. Understand the fees and charges

“One in five advised customers don’t know whether the fees charged by their adviser are fair or actively believe that they are unfair,” says Holly Mackay, Boring Money’s Founder and CEO. “One reason for this could be all the confusion that surrounds fees, and the difficulty in comparing like for like across various advice firm providers.”

So how can you get under the bonnet of what you are paying? A good place to start is to work out if you are paying what is called an ‘initial fee’ or an ‘upfront fee’ for the adviser to get all of your assets together and to work out the best course of action for you/make a plan. This is usually charged on a % basis of around 3%. You will also pay an ongoing fee for advice which is typically a percentage of your invested funds – typically between half a percent and 1%. What you pay may depend on the services and products you take out with your adviser, or if you just have a one-off session – which could also be charged as an hourly rate of between £150-250. Some advisers will charge a fixed flat £ fee, agreed with you in advance, to help with a specific query or need.

Ask for the fee in pounds, not just as a percentage, so you can see what it actually costs in cash terms. Ask what's included, ongoing advice and reviews, or just the initial plan. And remember that the value of advice is rarely just the fee saved or the return earned. Much of it is in the confidence people build as they understand their finances better, the costly mistakes they avoid, and the better decisions they make because someone is helping them think further ahead than they would alone. That's genuinely hard to price, but it's real.

Samantha SecombFinancial Adviser

A good way to think about the value of what your adviser is delivering is to get under the skin of the business model most advisers use, and to separate out the two roles or ‘jobs’ an IFA performs for you.

The first job is that they create a financial plan for you, based on an understanding of your future goals and what your current financial situation is. This includes your income and expenditure (so they understand, for example, mortgage affordability), where all your different money might be held at that moment - whether in pensions or investment accounts for example - and what your financial priorities are. Are you saving for your first home, wanting to top up pension savings, or planning to consolidate your retirement pots for example?

The plan is very valuable to you – not to mention costly for them to produce – as it involves the adviser doing a deep dive into your personal situation, and financial modelling, to check that you can achieve your goals with the right investment strategy. There may also be quite a bit of paperwork and chasing of providers they need to do as well.

The other role that your adviser performs is the purchasing of financial products and this is where advised clients often attribute value. There will be fees you will need to consider here. You will likely have to pay an admin charge to the provider of the product of around 0.25-0.75% – to cover their overheads such as running the product – a fee will go to where your money is kept, the salaries of the fund managers, etc – and a platform fee on top potentially. The platform, where you buy, sell and hold your investments can charge around 0.25-0.45%.

In practice, many advice firms will add all this up and present you with one fee. If you are seeing one of the UK’s big brands – like St James Place, Quilter Invest, Brooks Macdonald or similar, you would generally expect to pay between 2% and 2.5% a year all-in for this (to include all advice, all admin and all investments and pensions), although you can always try and negotiate which will be easier the higher the balance of your assets.

Fees and charges are cited as a top reason for dissatisfaction amongst advised clients, particularly when they are high and the advisers lack transparency. 62% of clients strongly agree that fees are fair for the value, and over a quarter only sightly agree. Comparing costs and fees is not easy as the charging models are hard to compare. So how do you know if you are paying too much? It may not be top of your to do list, but it definitely pays to spend a bit of time looking at your paperwork and asking the following:

4. Insist on regular reviews

A good time to check in with your adviser on the fees you are paying is at your annual review but if you are not sure on any of the above, ask for a meeting sooner rather than later.

Your annual review meeting should happen every year, and your adviser will talk to you about the performance of your investments and what your financial needs are for the following 12 months. These questions could be along the lines of: Are your financial goals still broadly the same? What sort of mortgage is right for you now the fixed interest term is coming to an end? Should you be paying in more to your pension? Should you rebalance your investments to take advantage of market changes?

5. Be proactive and stay informed

Another way you can make the most of your adviser is to get ahead of any changes you may be thinking of making, and ask them for their help and suggestions on next steps. Whether that is consolidating pension pots or moving investments from underperforming funds.

In summary, your relationship with your adviser hinges on trust. Make sure the foundations for that are firm by understanding how much you are paying and for what – then you can sit back, relax and know you have done your best for your finances.