For years, the media and the financial industry have both urged consumers to choose a financial advisor and develop a plan to reach their financial goals. While this is certainly a good idea, some clients have taken this a step further by using more than one advisor to manage their money.In some cases, this can be another wise move, but not always.
The question of whether you need more than one advisor to achieve your financial goals will depend on several factors.
Key Takeaways
- The main reason to find more than one financial advisor is if your current financial advisor is not meeting all of your needs.
- Your additional financial advisor should fill in the gaps of your current financial advisor.
- A second or third financial advisor may not need to be an advisor at all, but just a specialist in the area you are seeking assistance.
- Choosing an additional investment advisor or money manager requires a different thought process than choosing a financial advisor.
- If you do choose to have more than one financial advisor, it is prudent to make them all aware of how the others are managing your money.
Are Multiple Heads Better Than One?
If you already have one financial advisor, then you obviously don’t need to find another if they are helping you to meet all of your objectives. But if your advisor is clearly deficient in one or more areas of financial management, such as estate planning, then you probably should start looking for another addition to your financial team.
In this case, you may want to simply find an estate planning attorney or bank trust officer as opposed to another financial advisor, but you need to make sure that all of your needs are being met.
A harder question to answer is whether you need to have more than one stockbroker or investment advisor. If you aren’t sure that you’re getting the best bang for your buck from your current money manager, then you may want to talk to someone else in order to get a second opinion.
A key factor here is the types of investments that your current manager is using; if you are now largely invested in low-cost index funds that are tanking because there is a bear market, then you’re probably not going to be much better off moving your portfolio to someone who will trade your money more actively because numerous academic studies show that the vast majority of active money managers ultimately lag the market indices over long periods of time.
If you do have multiple financial advisors, it's important to ensure that the cost of them is not outweighing the monetary benefits they are providing.
Therefore, if you decide to move some or all of your funds to another firm or manager, be sure to think through the reasons why you are doing so. If you feel that the second advisor’s investment philosophy is more realistic or can show that it could get you better results or the same results with less risk, then moving may be the right choice. But you should be able to concisely quantify the reasons why you are dissatisfied with your current advisor before you decide to go somewhere else.
Who's In Charge?
If you do end up using more than one advisor, it would be wise to have at least one of them know exactly what the others are doing so that you can effectively coordinate all of your finances.
For example, if you hire one advisor to give you a comprehensive financial plan and also use a stockbroker to manage your actual investments and a State Farm agent to cover all of your insurance needs, then your comprehensive advisor will need to know what you are doing with the others, as well as know your company retirement plan and your bank accounts.
What is the Main Benefit of Having More Than One Financial Advisor?
Having more than one financial advisor allows you to gain guidance in specialized areas that your current advisor may not have expertise in managing. For example, if your advisor specifically advises on stocks, but you need assistance taking out life insurance, you may want to consider seeking advice from a personal insurance advisor.
What is the Main Drawback of Having More Than One Financial Advisor?
Seeking the services of several financial advisors can get costly. Before hiring other investment professionals, make sure your expected returns easily cover the cost of additional financial advice to make their guidance worthwhile. Keep in mind that advice fees generally range between 1% to 2% of the amount managed.
What’s the Best Way to Manage Having More Than One Financial Advisor?
If you have several financial advisors helping manage your investments, make sure you effectively communicate with them all to ensure there is no overlap and misunderstanding in the services they are providing. Consider having a quarterly virtual meeting with all of your advisors to maximize collaboration and outline your objectives.
Is it Worth Adding a Robo-Advisor in Conjunction with Traditional Financial Advisors?
Using robo-advisors, which provide automated, algorithm-driven financial planning and investment services, can be a cost-effecting way to manage a portion of your portfolio in conjunction with traditional financial advisors. They are particularly useful for implementing and managing passive investment strategies, such as tracking a market index like the S&P 500.
The Bottom Line
Having more than one financial advisor may be necessary in some cases, particularly if your financial situation is complicated and requires several areas of expertise.
But it is important that all of your advisors or brokers are ultimately on the same page with you in order to ensure that they do not end up working against each other. In the end, you want to make sure all your needs are being met and you are receiving the best financial advice, whether that comes from one individual or more.
