The Financial Conduct Authority's ongoing advice review will create waves far beyond St James’s Place.
But the ‘ambulance chasers’ sparking unwarranted complaints must be stopped in their tracks, and client feedback could help.
VouchedFor's Elevation survey, fuelled by more than 8,200 financial advisers’ client feedback, tells a clear story.
The vast majority of advisers are good people, delivering significant ongoing value to their clients.
That said, while the data shows that almost all clients (96 per cent) are speaking with their adviser at least once a year, a minority (4 per cent) are not.
And firms with any clients in this camp need to understand and be able to justify why.
For context, SJP suspects that 20,000 (2 per cent) of its clients did not receive an annual review in 2023.
The full impact of the FCA’s ongoing advice review will be revealed at the end of March, and is likely to cause pain for firms who haven’t been delivering ongoing services, or can’t prove that they have.
However, with many news feeds in recent days clogged with ads soliciting client complaints (not just targeting SJP clients, I should add), there is a risk of far greater pain.
That is in the form of unwarranted payouts and, worse, further erosion of public trust in advice.
Collecting evidence to support the ongoing value you’ve delivered is important, and client feedback could help.
Elevation data shows that 88 per cent of clients are confident they’re on track to achieve their financial goals and most of the remainder feel "quite confident".
An impressive 96 per cent of clients rate their adviser 4 or more out of 5 for value for money. And for 98 per cent of clients, it’s their adviser, not them, who initiates contact.
This type of data, together with qualitative client comments on how their adviser helped them, creates a powerful body of evidence to support the value of ongoing advice and ward off baseless claims.
In total, VouchedFor holds 237,000 financial advice clients’ feedback (excluding mortgage clients) dating back to 2012.
We invite advisers, including those who are no longer members, to get in touch if they have any concerns about unwarranted complaints to see if we can help them gather relevant evidence free of charge.
Alex Whitson is managing director at VouchedFor
