Choosing a financial advisor for retirement is a huge exercise in trust. After saving for retirement for most of your working life, you are choosing a person to manage those funds and act in your best interests.
Your investment is like your child. You’ve watched over it diligently for twenty, twenty-five, thirty or more years, as it has slowly come to maturity. Letting a financial professional into that arena is a remarkably personal process.
Here are four crucial questions to ask when choosing a financial advisor for retirement.
Are they designated as a fiduciary?
A fiduciary has certain responsibilities that he or she must uphold:
• Fiduciaries act solely in the interest of the clients whose funds they are responsible for, with the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to them.
• They are responsible for carrying out their duties prudently.
• Fiduciaries have a duty to care for their clients, meaning they must show due diligence in following up to ensure that the plan they construct is still in the client’s best interests.
• They are also responsible for being transparent about fees involved in the investments recommended by the fiduciary.
Fiduciaries who do not follow principles of conduct mentioned above may be personally liable to restore any losses to the plan, making it in their own interest as well to ensure that they keep their client’s best interests first.
Miramontes Capital and Fiduciary Responsibility
In the ever-shifting regulatory climate, my team and I are proud to take the fiduciary guidelines mentioned here not as a requirement we have to scramble to hold ourselves to, but as a confirmation of what I’ve always believed is required in the relationship between our team of retirement architects and the clients we serve. At Miramontes Capital, we take the trust that our clients have placed in us very seriously. We work to take fiduciary responsibility and make it personal.
Do you feel you can ask this person anything?
Considering the trust that goes into partnering with a financial professional, do you feel you can ask this person anything? Can you see yourself with this person long-term?
To achieve your goals for retirement, you must be comfortable enough to have candid conversations about things like investment risk tolerance to personal conversations about achieving a meaningful life.
Will the services you receive include ongoing education?
If you’re seeking professional assistance, it’s likely because you want guidance for your financial future.
Regardless of how educated your retirement planner is, or how long they’ve been in the business: a professional who meets with you or calls you only once a year, which is all too common in the industry, is simply not able to make personalized, informed decisions that will conform to your needs. No matter who your financial professional is, it is critical for you to meet or talk with them frequently, especially in the beginning stages of your retirement.
Our Miramontes Method for ensuring that clients remain informed on their account starts at the first meeting and doesn’t stop. Once you’re a client, we confer with you 10 to 12 times during the first two years, which is about once a month. During the third year, we scale it back a bit to every 45 to 60 days if the client is more conservative, otherwise we continue with the 10 to 12 communications per year via call, Skype, or one-to-one meetings. This schedule of analysis and communication with our client continues for life.
We also go further with the inclusion of roundtable breakfasts, where we get to meet with and stay current on the personal lives of the people we’re assisting, and also give them some time to talk together and share their experiences. We share market updates with our clients to keep them informed and educated, and promote further education with weekly videos and various other events.
We do business this way because any other way simply doesn’t make sense to us. Everyone has a personal relationship with their retirement funds, and we feel that that a financial architect’s relation to his client’s funds should be personal, too.
Is the professional’s team supportive and open to you?
“The great marriages are partnerships. It can’t be a great marriage without being a partnership.” – Hellen Mirren
If you’re married or share finances with your partner, the success of your budgeting strategy is dependent upon your willingness to communicate openly about money and spending habits. The same can be said of the team your financial professional surrounds themselves with.
Is your professional’s team supportive and open to you? Do they take a personal approach to your finances, who think of you as a person, and are willing to learn about your unique situation?
Regular discussions about money with your team may be uncomfortable at first, but if you approach it in the right way, it can form a vital pillar in your partnership.
These crucial questions should inform any decision you make regarding your investment professional. Schedule an in office or over the phone consultation to discuss how Miramontes Capital can help you with your new beginning through retirement planning.