This is a subject often rehearsed in our business. Paying for financial advice, let alone being able or willing to save for a far-off retirement, are rarely likely to be priorities for under-40s. It’s only those with ‘higher earning power’ (which means over £50k pa) who are likely to have any form of savings, and 1/5 opt out of or reduce payments to even their auto-enrolment, workplace pensions. One thing that should be a priority for that age group, and the one thing for which advisers can still be paid commission, is life insurance. They’re the ones with big mortgages and young families, but huge numbers have no, or at best inadequate protection. So DIY has failed there, too. At the risk of repetition (which has never stopped me before), the once-everywhere life insurance salesman had a role to play. As did his incentives to sell something actually much-needed.
“Letter of authority: Why now is the right time for change”
This may sound like a non-issue from outside the world-of-financial-advice bubble. It is the bain, however, of the daily working lives of many of us, particularly of those paid by we advisers to do the dirty work of dealing with the many providers with whom we have to work.
