For the last 12 years I’ve been helping UK resident doctors and dentists with all aspects of their financial planning. My colleague and partner in crime on this site, Graeme Urwin, has been doing the same for about 20 years. So I suppose between us we’ve got a pretty good idea as to what works when it comes to financial planning and financial services in general.
A few months ago we were discussing what we could do to spread the word so that the thousands of doctors and dentists that we don’t have as clients could still benefit from our experience and knowledge.
Feedback from prospective clients told us that getting access to the right financial advice was (and probably still is) becoming harder and harder for many in the medical and dental professions.
In the past there’s traditionally been a few sources available, such as BMA Services, Medical Sickness Society and various (usually specialist) Independent Financial Advisers, not to mention the banks and building societies who are always keen to promote and sell their own products to you.
But a worrying trend emerged in June 2005 when the whole structure of how financial advice is offered to the UK public changed, bringing with it a new breed of adviser that may be more oriented towards selling policies than providing sound, research based financial advice.
This new ‘multi-tied’ adviser can now offer you a number of policies from different providers (as opposed to a tied adviser who can only deal with one product provider), however the service they offer may be more about how many policies they can sell to you. Even one of the leading Independent Financial Advisory companies changed their service offering from independent to ‘multi-tie’.
It’s hard to believe they’d risk upsetting their clients, but they did.
And here we believe lies a potential problem…
I’ve personally given talks on all kinds of financial topics throughout the UK, at Dental Schools, hospitals and GP practices. I’ve met many financial advisers who operate in this market, some good, some mediocre, and, well, some I’d rather forget about.
Unfortunately, many seemed more concerned with how many policies they could sell and how much commission they’d earn, rather than how many long term relationships they could build with their clients.
Getting advice from a financial adviser usually involves making plans that will potentially affect your financial future for the rest of your life. It’s absolutely crucial that you make the right financial decisions, as mistakes (which you probably won’t realise you’ve made at the time) could cost you tens of thousands of pounds over time.
But how can you tell if you’ve been given the right advice?
Often there isn’t an easy way to tell.
The Future
Very early on in my financial services career I realised that the right financial solution for clients did not always need them to buy yet another financial policy. For example, for many the best solution was to overpay their mortgage rather than invest the money in stock market based funds.
I knew this approach was unique, as not all these ‘new’ solutions paid a commission. But in my mind it was best advice.
So Graeme and I sat down and discussed how we could share the same strategies that we recommend to clients to the thousands of doctors and dentists who are NOT our clients.
In the end we decided to use the power of the internet and launched the Financial Tips Newsletter. As an extension to this, we also wanted doctors and dentists to be able to find us on the web so that they could learn from our financial strategies and so they’d have a reliable source for unbiased financial advice. This led us to set up this site, known as a weblog.
The idea is that we’ll be posting useful information and topics on the site that will help you get ahead financially. We don’t have a posting schedule as such as sometimes work does get in the way, but if you stick around we know you’ll get massive value from it. As an addition I’d suggest you subscribe to the Financial Tips Newsletter. That way you’ll get email updates twice every month so won’t have to check the site.
If you have any questions or comments just complete this form and we’ll get back to you within a day or two.
We wish you success with your financial planning!
Ray Prince
Financial Planner
About Ray Prince
