ANY discussion of estate planning or risk insurance routinely brings out the term ‘holistic planning’.
The phrase has been bandied about the industry for many years, usually in the context of supplying financial advice in these areas. Given this use of the word, has there been too much focus on managed funds? If you think the question is not worth asking consider the following.
In recent years the level of planners with risk business as a core part of their practice has dropped. The numbers for estate planning are not much better. To be fair, they are not easy areas to deal with and compared to the managed funds side of the industry, can be dull and difficult to communicate. Clients understand returns but planning for death and traumatic events are very low on their list of immediate concerns.
So the question remains valid — are managed funds getting too much attention? The answer is that they are if the planning and advice industry has to specifically refer to those planners who supply estate planning and risk insurance as holistic planners. We certainly don’t refer to those planners who don’t offer these products as being less than holistic, but maybe we should.
It would seem a very odd situation to sit in front of clients and ask them to make you their trusted financial adviser and attempt to build some kind of professional relationship without a full suite of financial services and products to offer.
It would not happen in any part of the industry that offers investment returns, so why should it happen in those parts that seek to protect a client’s current and future financial services? In fact, why are these regarded as parts of a planning business that can be treated with any less importance?
Planners cannot be all things to all clients. However, given their increasing power to dictate what goes on in the market, clients will seek out planners who can offer a real full service, not just a service that has numerous ways to make investments.
Fortunately the last few years have seen a return by planners to estate planning and risk insurance, the roots of the industry. It would be good to think that in a few years it will be the planners who do not offer a range of financial planning services who will be the ones that stand out, rather than the ones that do.
