When Should You Get a Financial Advisor?

If you manage substantial assets and have long-term financial goals such as wealth preservation and growth, estate planning, and tax optimization, your financial picture is likely to be complex. Partnering with an experienced financial advisor can allow you to delegate some of the work this involves, freeing up your time for other endeavors, plus give you access to knowledge that can inform and improve your decisions and outcomes.

What Do Financial Advisors Do?

Financial advisors aim to help their clients in a variety of ways, but the most integral part of what they do is financial planning. Financial planning is a process that can help you identify and inventory your current financial situation, chart goals for where you want to go and who you want to be, then develop a plan that you can follow to pursue those goals.

The process is ongoing. As you move through life, your financial advisor can help monitor your progress and adjust your plan as your goals or the economic environment changes.

Skilled financial advisors have spent years developing technical and emotional knowledge to guide their clients through the process. They can provide advice on a variety of topics, such as:

• Cash flow management
• Credit planning
• Investing
• Saving for big purchases
• Retirement planning
• Estate planning
• Wealth management
• Insurance

Financial advisors also spend years developing strong listening and communication skills to help you talk through your goals, uncover hidden risks, and plot a course to work toward success.

Financial advisors are also obligated to act with a fiduciary standard of care, which means that they have a duty to act in your best interests, as the client, rather than in the best interests of the advisor, advisor’s employer, or any other entity. As a fiduciary, putting the client first is an important concept and obligation that helps ensure the focus is always on your needs and goals.

Do I Need a Financial Advisor?

Although financial advisors help many people from all walks of life, there are multiple reasons why they can be especially helpful to individuals with high net worth who have:

• Unique opportunities: A larger pool of investable assets can open up more opportunities, many of which require specialized knowledge to access and benefit from.
• Diverse assets: Managing a wider array of assets that include real estate, private equity, and alternative investments may benefit from specialized knowledge.
• Risk management: More assets equal greater opportunities, but they also mean greater risk and more need for proactive risk management strategies.
• Major tax obligations: Tax laws for ultra-high net worth individuals are complex and ever-changing. Expert advice can help you minimize tax liabilities and keep more of your money to work for you.
• Substantial estates: Larger estates require more strategic planning to minimize taxes and ensure transfer to the people and in the manner you want.
• Special insurance needs: Not only may you need personalized insurance coverage for luxury assets such as homes and cars, but you may also need insurance for special purposes, such as protecting expensive collections, business interests, or even yourself and your family from ransom demands.

Although most people understand the value a financial advisor can provide in investing, there are far more areas of your financial picture that they can impact. They can help you understand the broader implications of your financial choices, facilitating a cohesive strategy that addresses all facets of your financial well-being. When you look to hire an advisor, ask about all of their areas of expertise and choose someone with extensive experience helping ultra-high net worth individuals manage, protect, and grow their wealth.

When Should You Get a Financial Advisor?

People often seek out a financial advisor during times of transition. Key life changes that may signal a need for an advisor include:

• Major career changes
• Significant wealth accumulation
• Family events
• Major purchases/expenses
• Retirement planning
• Tax and estate planning

Planning for a child’s future education, your own retirement, or a new home tend to be gradual transitions. Divorce, selling a business, being laid off, inheriting money or losing a loved one are more dramatic and sudden transitions. But the earlier you begin working with a financial advisor, the more prepared you can be for any type of life event, gradual or sudden, positive or negative.

The Value of Using a Financial Advisor

Yes, financial advisors charge fees for their services, usually a percentage of the assets they manage. But a comprehensive financial planning process conducted and executed by an experienced advisor can help with many life and financial issues:

• Relieve stress and protect us from some of the sudden shocks that life offers
• Build a legacy that lasts through generations
• Identify ways to reach our major financial goals
• Pinpoint our risk capacity and risk tolerance, goals, and time horizons to create appropriate investment portfolios
• Determine when and how to claim Social Security
• Navigate transitions in a world surrounded by change

This last point is one of the most important. Market downturns, political turmoil, recession fears, and high inflation can feel unnerving and defeating. But working with a financial advisor can help you stay on course, no matter what the world does around you. Financial advisors provide an experienced ear that can listen, adjust, and create new pathways toward your personalized goals, especially when times are uncertain.

How to Find a Financial Advisor

A financial advisor is a good partner and coach to have on your side through all of life’s changes. Starting early can help maximize the benefits, but if you haven’t started working with one yet, now is always the ideal time to start.

Finding a financial advisor you can trust is an essential and worthwhile step. Working with a fiduciary who is tasked to always put your interests first can lower stress levels while optimizing your financial opportunities.

To be custom-matched with a fiduciary you can trust to support your goals with customized planning tailored to your personal situation, take advantage of Carson’s advisor matching program today.

When you think about financial planning or wealth management, you may think those services are only needed and meaningful for people who have accumulated monopoly-style buckets of money. And while financial advisors and wealth managers can add generational value to the top 0.2%, they may also be able to add meaningful and significant generational value to those of us in the remaining 99.8%.