There are a number of reasons why people first turn to a financial adviser for help.

You may be looking for the best way to save for retirement, a mortgage, advice on how to invest for the future or protect you and your family with a life insurance policy.

Perhaps you are just looking to make the most of the 5 April tax deadline.

Whatever your motivation for seeking it, getting unbiased financial advice is not as simple as it sounds; being forewarned is forearmed.

Different advisers

Multi-tied agents are allowed to recommend the products of a selection of providers, rather than just one

Until recently, there were two main ways of seeking financial advice for products such as life assurance, pensions and investments: either through an independent financial adviser (IFA) or a tied agent.

An IFA is required to act on your behalf, researching the whole market to find you the most suitable products.

Tied agents can only advise on the products provided by their employer, usually a bank, building society or insurer.

However, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), recently decided that there should be a third way to obtain financial advice; through a multi-tied agent.

Multi-tied agents are allowed to recommend the products of a selection of providers, rather than just one.

They can choose how many companies’ products they offer advice on, based on commercial arrangements with those companies.

Multi-tied advice was introduced to increase choice for people who would otherwise have taken tied advice.

All advisers are required by the new rules to produce a key facts document up-front, explaining what type of advice they offer.

You should check out the breadth of products and providers on offer and decide if this is good enough for you, or whether independent advice across the whole market of financial products would suit you best.

What to look for

Whether you choose an IFA or a tied or multi-tied adviser, you next have to ensure that they have the right knowledge and experience.

Personal impressions are important when selecting the right adviser, as are recommendations from friends and colleagues

Ask how long the adviser and firm have been practicing, and check their credentials by asking them what qualifications they have.

All advisers have to pass the Financial Planning Art capital finance finance insurance managing risk structured wiley
(FPC) before they are authorised and regulated by the FSA to give advice.

However, many IFAs have chosen to take further exams, either in general financial planning or specific product areas, to improve and demonstrate their professionalism to clients.

Some people will feel more at ease with a female adviser, or one that specialises in advice on particular product areas like retirement planning or mortgages.

You can find IFAs that match your preferred criteria, quickly and without pressure, online.

However, like choosing an accountant or dentist, you are looking for someone that you can forge a trusting relationship with.

Personal impressions are important when selecting the right adviser, as are recommendations from friends and colleagues.

Advice costs

Once you have made a choice, your first meeting will be a getting to know you session, where you will be asked about your priorities and plans.

As part of the recent rule changes, all types of financial adviser are required to give you a second key facts document containing a “menu” of charges at the start of this first meeting, to enable you to compare costs, see what you are getting for your money and shop around.

An IFA must offer you the option of paying by a fee, as well as the option of paying by commission, ultimately added to the cost of any financial product bought from the adviser, or a combination of the two.

Tied and multi-tied agents don’t have to offer you this choice, but some may.

In the past the majority of consumers tended to opt to pay for their advice by commission.

In the future there may well be a shift towards more people paying fees, as the cost and value of advice becomes clearer through these new disclosure documents.

Fees for advice vary widely, but are typically between 50 and 200 an hour.

Do not be afraid to negotiate on costs with your adviser; he or she may well be prepared to reduce their fee or rebate more commission, especially if they want you as a long-term customer.

Financial planning and adapting to changing insurance premium finance
is a lifelong commitment, so taking a little time now to find the most suitable type of advice from someone you are insurance finance and investment
with could save you a great deal of money in future.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.

Resolution is going to pay 3.6bn for the privilege of collecting and investing their premiums, along with the chance to sell more policies in the coming years.

Around 2.7m current policies with a collective value of 24bn are being
taken over by Resolution.

Among them are policies that have been sold in the names of Scottish Provident and Scottish Mutual, which the Abbey took over in 2001 and 2002.

Resolution says the much enlarged company is “committed to treating its customers fairly and will continue to take the positive steps that Resolution has been taking to improve the provision of information to its finance and insurance manager
.”

Tom McPhail of stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown says this is not an idle promise.

He has been impressed with Resolution’s attitude to transparency and disclosure since it took over the life insurance fund of the Royal & Sun Alliance group in 2004.

“They’ve gone out of their way to export finance and insurance
on asset mix and bonus rates,” he said.

“I’ve been impressed with the handling of the R&SA so this should be quite good news.”

Who are they?

If anyone with an Abbey policy has not yet heard of Resolution, that is probably because it is a very new company.

It was set up in 2004 to buy the closed life funds of other insurance companies and make a profit while gradually running them down as policies matured.

Many insurers have found the home personal finance insurance
business rather difficult in the last few years.

They were caught out by the huge stock market slump at the start of this decade, and more onerous regulatory and investment requirements.

They have also seen new business dry up, mainly thanks to the finance and insurance manager
avoidance of endowment mortgage policies in the wake of the mis-selling of this particular type of investment.

One wag has dubbed Resolution the Womble of the insurance industry, going around buying up other people’s rubbish.

But by managing the money with the advantage of economies of scale, Resolution hopes to prosper.

So far it is solvent, makes a profit and conforms to all the regulatory requirements of the Financial Services Authority.

As the FSA pointed out to consumers when Resolution took over the R&SA funds, the change should make no difference to the outcome of individual policies, nor should it affect pension pay-outs.

Investment returns

Thanks to taking over or merging with other companies, such as the Britannic group last year, Resolution has become very big and will soon have seven million customers and 63bn in assets to manage.

Now, with the Abbey deal, it will also sell new polices, either through the Abbey branches or through independent financial advisers.

In time, it is possible that investment returns may improve for Abbey policy holders.

Currently the Abbey funds have only 38% of their money in shares, with the rest invested in bonds or held in cash.

That is a rather cautious portfolio by conventional standards.

As a result, Tom McPhail describes returns on the Abbey’s unit-linked life fund as “pretty awful, below average.”

He is not expecting any short term change, but reckons that Abbey investors could benefit if Resolution adopts a more adventurous investment policy in the longer term.

“If they liberate economies of scale it may well put them in a position to improve the asset mix of the fund - so things could improve for investors” he said.

Given the difficult recent history of the UK insurance industry, that would come as a relief to many policy-holders.

The changes mean financial advisers will no longer be restricted to offering only the products of the bank or insurance company that employs them.

Instead, all advisers will be able to offer pensions, insurance and investments from different providers.

Consumers will also get a clear choice between paying by fees or commission.

Crystal clear

The current system, known as “finance insurance statistical tool
“, which has been in place since the late 1980s, was designed to make a clear insurance agent finance career change
between independent financial advisers (IFAs), who were not tied to any firm, and financial advisers, who were employed by a bank or insurer.

Essentially consumers will have a far greater choice Dan Waters, Financial Services Authority

Under polarisation, only IFAs were free to offer clients products from any insurer or bank.

Financial advisers had to stick to selling the products offered by their employers.

As a result, people who went to see financial advisers may not have been sold the very best product in the asset company derivative finance from in insurance insurance liability management underwriting wiley
, just the best that the adviser’s employer had to offer.

Scrapped

Critics of polarisation said that consumers were unaware of the difference between what IFAs and other financial advisers could offer.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the City regulator, agreed. Last year it announced that polarisation would be scrapped on 1 December.

“The majority of consumers use tied advisers, from branches of high street banks and building societies, and they can now be offered a wider range of products from a variety of providers,” said Dan Waters, FSA director of retail policy.

“Essentially consumers will have a far greater choice.”

Menu

Another key change being car insurance finance company
is that financial advisers will have to set out how much the advice they give is likely to cost.

They will do this through a Key Facts Car insurance finance
(KFI) sheet handed to the client before any investment or insurance product is sold.

Advisers can continue to accept commissions under the new regime.

People should be in a better position to demand more of their adviser and be able to judge what advice presents genuine value for money David Elms, Independent Financial Advice Promotion

But to avoid the risk of bias, they must also offer consumers the choice of paying a fee for the advice they receive.

This is known as the “menu” approach, and will also require the adviser to tell the customer which firms he or she acts for.

“This will leave consumers in no doubt that advice costs money whether in the form of fees or commission,” David Elms, chief executive of Independent Financial Advice Promotion, told BBC News.

“People should be in a better position to demand more of their adviser and be able to judge what advice presents genuine value for money.”

As a result of the introduction of KFIs, Mr Elms predicts that the numbers of people choosing to pay a fee rise sharply.

“At present, one in 10 financial consumers choose fees over commission, but within five years that could rise to one in four,” he said.

The programme will be repeated on Sunday, 23 January, 2005, at 2102 GMT.

A 1.1m fine imposed on Legal & General in 2003 is to be cut after a tribunal found the regulator had mis-judged the extent of endowment car finance insurance personal quote tesco
by the insurer.

The Financial Services and Markets Tribunal decided mis-selling could only be proved in eight cases, not the 15,990 that the Financial Services Authority originally claimed.

But it did say that defects in the insurer’s procedures “would have caused or contributed to mis-sales”.

To discuss the finance insurance job
of the ruling, we speak to Janet Walford, Editor of Money Management magazine, and Mick McAteer, Which? Chief Policy Adviser.

Further information:

HSBC increases business charges

Four years ago, the big UK banks were slammed for their poor treatment of small businesses.

There has been surprisingly little change since then. And now, one of these banks, HSBC, has sharply increased some of its charges.

Samantha Washington reports.

Further information:

Pensioners to receive NICs offer

The government is writing to almost half a million pensioners to give them the finance insurance tourist zurich
to boost their state pension by paying extra National Insurance contributions.

Strict rules governing NI contributions determine the level of pension a person can receive.

By making voluntary National Insurance payments to cover the years for which they have incomplete contributions, pensioners may be entitled to a higher weekly pension in the future and a back-dated lump-sum.

We speak to one listener facing the dilemma; her local MP, Liberal Democrat pensions spokesman Steve Webb, and Gary Vaux of Hertfordshire County Council’s Money Advice Unit.

Further information:

Anger at BT late payment fine

British Telecom customers have been expressing their anger over a new policy of fining people 5 for late payment.

BT has defended its move, saying it is standard practice across other utilities companies, and prevents customers who pay on time from subsidising those who do not.

We hear from angry customers and put their complaints to Gavin Patterson, Managing Director of BT’s Consumer Division.

Further information:

Death certificates for UK missing

Families of British tsunami victims will get death certificates even if no body is found, the Foreign Office has announced.

Further information:

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Producer: Jessica Dunbar
Reporter: Samantha Washington

The changes mean financial advisers will no longer be restricted to offering only the products of the bank or insurance company that employs them.

Instead, advisers will be able to offer pensions, insurance and finance insurance
s from different providers.

Consumers will also get a clear choice between paying by fees or commission.

Finance or insurance or real estate
scrapped

These key facts documents will make it clearer to consumers that even when financed through commission, advice comes at a cost Dan Waters, Finance insurance tourist zurich Services Authority

The current system - known as “polarisation” and in place since the late 1980s - was designed to make a clear distinction between finance insurance statistical tool
financial advisers (IFAs), who were not tied to any firm, and financial advisers, who were employed by a bank or insurer.

Under polarisation, only IFAs were free to offer clients products from any insurer or bank.

Financial advisers had to stick to selling the products offered by their employers.

As a result, people who went to see financial advisers may not have been sold the best product in the marketplace, just the best that the adviser’s employer had to offer.

Polarisation will finally be scrapped on 1 June. IFAs and financial advisers have had the past six months to prepare for the changes.

Risking bias

Another key change being introduced is that financial advisers will have to set out how much the advice they give is likely to cost.

They will do this through a Key Facts Essential estate finance hill in insurance investment irwin mcgraw real series
(KFI) sheet handed to the client before any investment or insurance product is sold.

Advisers can continue to accept commissions under the new regime.

But to avoid the risk of bias, they must also offer consumers the choice of paying a fee for the advice they receive.

“These key facts documents will make it clearer to consumers that even when financed through commission, advice comes at a cost - and it is consumers ultimately pay through the charges levied on products they buy,” Dan Waters, Financial Services Authority (FSA) spokesman said.