Payment Options

When taking professional advice there are inevitably costs.

There are several ways of paying your financial adviser for the work needed to get you the right advice. Your adviser can be paid a commission from the company which supplies your product or you can pay your adviser a fee. The fee can either be paid direct when invoiced or collected by your adviser from the policy thus avoiding the need to write a cheque.

Often there is no charge for an initial meeting, but you should check that first. Remember that commission is only an option when you buy something through your adviser. If you take advice and then proceed to arrange a product directly with a provider, the advice may still need to be paid for by you.

Commission is taken out of the money you pay in. This can be done as a chunk right at the start, or at regular intervals.

If commission is taken out each year, make sure your adviser is working for the money. If you have a lot of money to invest or your circumstances do not demand a lot of time then your adviser may be happy to put some of the commission back into the policy. This helps boost the potential performance as more is invested on your behalf.

If you pay a fee, you write out a cheque to your financial adviser. This should mean the charges taken out of your policy will be lower as there is no commission to pay.

More money is then invested for you up front. However, many people either cannot or do not want to pay fees.

Whatever method you opt for remember that the important point is that you know how much the advice is costing - not whether you write a cheque or pay by means of commission.

We are happy to work on a commission basis, a fee basis (fixed or hourly rate) or even part and part. We want you to understand how the remuneration system works and how it affects you, before you make this choice. However, there are some situations where we may not agree to work on a commission basis alone.

We will agree the method of any remuneration with you before undertaking any chargeable work for you. By this method you are protected from unexpected costs, even if we have carried out some work on your behalf. Whichever route is chosen, we would expect the advice to be the same.