Don’t forget to follow through (annually or more often)

Name:

Gina

Occupation:

Media relations

Location:

Calgary

Age:

35

Investing since:

2014

Has an advisor?

Yes, since 2014

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This article is part of the Advisor’s Edge 20 Ways to Be a Better Advisor feature package, published in the June 2018 edition of AE. Click here for more tips and to learn about our 20th anniversary.

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Gina’s relationship with her financial advisor started off well enough. Referred by a friend in 2014, the then 31-year-old Calgarian wasn’t turned off by the grilling she faced from the advisor in her first meeting.

“Though they were intrusive questions, it felt like part of the process and information I needed to provide to get somewhere with the planning,” which involved a high-interest savings account for the short term and mutual funds for longer-term investments, she says.

But that planning, and the overall relationship, has barely progressed.

Gina receives annual statements from mutual fund companies, but she’s only had a few follow-ups with her advisor, which she initiated: when the Alberta economy tanked in 2015, a tax question the following year, and one annual review.

The minimal communication is “mostly fine,” Gina says, as her investment plan is long term and her financial situation hasn’t changed in a significant way. But she would appreciate some context.

“It would be nice to know how these investments are doing compared to other investments. I can see my own statement but I don’t have anything to compare it to,” she says. “Maybe I should be checking out other options if these aren’t performing well in comparison.”

Gina wants her advisor to help her interpret the mutual fund statements—”a generic letter from this company that I have no interaction with”—and relate them to the financial plan they developed.

“We set up this plan at the start and now four years have passed. It would be interesting to go back and see, ‘OK, how close am I to these five-year goals we had set out?’

Gina would also like to feel confident that her advisor is monitoring her investments and “looking out for my best interest, whereas now I get the feeling that they’re just happening in the background and it’s not something that she’s checking in on at all.”

Still, she’s not planning to change advisors. Hers is responsive whenever Gina has specific questions, and onboarding with a new advisor and moving accounts would be a hassle, she says.