Independent financial advice

Why seek independent advice

If you have savings or assets an independent adviser can help you maximise their use. An independent adviser will provide impartial and unbiased information. They should have expertise on planning your care financing and can help you plan not just for now, but also into the future. Planning ahead can help avoid problems, such as having to move care home because it is no longer affordable.

Benefits of independent financial advice

Those who might benefit from independent financial advice include (this is not a complete list):

• Anyone who needs a small amount of money to fund care at home or to pay for adaptations or extensions to their home
• Anyone with an immediate need for long-term residential or nursing home care
• Anyone already staying in a care home and paying for it from their own income or savings
• Anyone acting as an attorney and looking after the financial affairs of someone in any of the above circumstances
• Anyone planning ahead for any of the above situations

Specialist care-fees adviser

You’re not obliged to get professional advice when choosing how to finance your long-term care, however, you may find this beneficial.

A specialist care-fees adviser should help you find a means of funding your long-term care that is:

• Suitable for your needs
• Affordable both now and in the future
• Compatible with your attitude to risk and your financial priorities

Some self-financing options are quite straightforward, while others are much more complicated. A specialist care-fees adviser will help you to compare all your options before deciding which one’s right for you. They will also be able to explain all the costs and risks involved with each product, and should be able to help with other things too, like arranging your will or a power of attorney.

Choosing a financial adviser

Not all advisers will have a clear understanding of long-term care planning. Ask them if they have a CF8 or CeLTCI qualification. These qualifications demonstrate advisers’ understanding of the many issues you may have to consider when it comes to funding long-term care. These advisers are often referred to as specialist care-fees advisers.

Some advisers are regulated. ‘Regulated’ financial advice means that an organisation is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and must stick to a code of conduct and ethics and take responsibility for the suitability of any product they recommend. Even when advice is regulated it is useful to ask whether the adviser is an ‘independent financial adviser’ (also known as an IFA), who can offer the full range of financial products and providers available, or only offers ‘restricted advice’  focusing on a limited selection of products and/or providers. Restricted advisers and firms cannot describe the advice they offer as 'independent' (though they are independent of Wokingham Borough Council).

Another important distinction is between ‘guidance’ (also called an ‘information only’ or ‘non-advice’ service) and ‘advice’. It is important to understand that while buying an investment product after receiving ‘guidance’ rather than ‘advice’ might reduce the cost, it also means you might not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if things go wrong.

Independent financial adviser fees

The fees of an independent financial adviser can vary widely depending on the complexity of your situation, and the level of advice and types of products they recommend.

In some cases you could pay between £75 and £250 an hour for their services, so it’s important to make sure you ask up-front how much their advice is going to cost, and whether it’s a fixed fee, or based on the time they spend working for you.

You could ask your adviser about splitting their fee into a number of instalments, or paying an hourly fee at the end of each consultation.