Roy Morgan’s Image of Professions 2016 survey asked people to rate 30 professions in regards to ethics and honesty as either ‘Very high’, ‘High’, ‘Average’, ‘Low’ or ‘Very Low’.
It found that only 27 per cent of those surveyed rated financial planners as ‘High’ or ‘Very high’ for ethics and honesty, up 3 percentage points from a year ago.
In other finance-related occupations, accountants rated at 51 per cent (up 6 percentage points), bank managers at 30 per cent (down 4 percentage points), and stockbrokers at 14 per cent (up 2 percentage points).
Of all 30 professions surveyed, 23 increased in regards to ethics and honesty while four professions decreased and only three professions were unchanged.
Nurses rated the highest for the 22nd year in a row, with 92 per cent rating them ‘High’ or ‘Very high’ for ethics and honesty, while car salesmen rated the lowest at only 4 per cent.
The survey was conducted by telephone with 655 Australian men and women aged 14 and over.
So the 80% of people who don’t have an adviser have a low perception of them ? Perhaps we should also have a survey of the advisers perception of the 80% of people who aren’t in advice relationships? It might dispel the myth that the 80% are a target market to chase.
bit of a meaningless survey
recognising that less than 20% of the population have a financial planner – and we have had an industry super campaign doing everything it can to denigrate what we do – its no suprise the numbers are down.
This is in contrast to the real relationships I have with clients – where trust is my number one currency.
Basically a meaningless piece of fluff.
cheers
So Steve, what is your proposed remuneration model for situations when changes to legislation, products, or markets warrant a change to someone’s plan. Do you wait for people to figure it out for themselves and give you a call? What about changes to their own situation? Do you leave it up to them to figure out if changes in their lives are financially relevant or not?
Ongoing service fees put the onus back on the adviser to monitor and think about these things, so that clients don’t have to. That is part of what clients are paying for. Not just the transactional advice.
Clients get reminded of their ongoing fees every year via Renewal Notice and have the ability to cancel at any time if they think they’re not getting value. And their fees cancel automatically unless they specifically request to continue them every two years.
I’m not sure where you think the problem is?
The industry is plagued with perception problem still and it will forever continue unless the huge expenses are removed for both the adviser & their practice so the client can simply NOT BE OVERCHARGED or pay through the nose for what is simple advice in most cases.
Commission has been turned into a dirty word for the right reasons.
Fee for Service and its monthly or yearly continuous billing MUST be the next cancer to be removed from this industry.
If you want to be taken seriously you need to charge per visit or per action. Meetings, reviews and advice points should be billable not simply monthly service fees regardless of service levels.
Before you Dudley do rights chime in with justifying your fees, I’m not talking about your high end, time sapping clients. You all know who I’m talking about, you all have a bunch of retirees & other low service clients who just don’t deserve to be paying your bills to run your practice. You know it, I know it and the industry knows it. Pretty soon the clients will understand it and leave you with nothing.
I wonder what portion of the 655 men and women have ever met with a financial planner? That information would provide some context.
No-one in finance gets rated highly EVER. Just have to accept that. We are the whipping boys for market volatility, failed product, failed insurance claims. The other work we do goes unrecognized.
Thanks for yet again putting a downer on the Financial Planning industry with these headlines. When are you people going to realise that you are turning people away from the much needed advice that financial planners provide. Ok lets all just rely on the government to support us in our retirement shall we. What a great idea. Keep publishing all this negativity and that’s the future for Australian. Good on you staff reporter – obviously you have nothing better to report.
Until such time as there is a clear understanding of the difference between a REAL financial planner and those masquerading as one negative perceptions will persist.
I’m sure that clients dealing with REAL financial planners would have a VERY different opinion of the ethics and honesty of their adviser. By the way, what 14 year olds were surveyed? Really? What am I missing here?