Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Scope of advice

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Scope of advice

Dear Mr. Tan,

I came to know your blog from "mypaper". I find that some of the financial/insurance planning info and tips you shared with us been very useful and informative.

I would like to seek your advise on the following question: Does the financial adviser restrict their advice to only investment? Do they give advice on financial planning such as expenditure, restructuring of loans, when requested by their clients?

REPLY

Most of the financial advisers that I am aware of, will help you to buy a financial or investment product. They earn commission by selling the product to you.

As part of their service, they will help to prepare a financial plan for you. But, I am not aware if they are able to help in restructuring loans. I suggest that you ask them directly.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Most "advisers" are insurance salesmen. They sell and they don't advise.Don't be fooled by their fanciful masquerades as consultants, advisers, Financial associate and life planners.They are nothing but salesmen and women.
If you don't beleive just watch out what they do when you meet them. The first thing they will do is to whip out a brochure or go straight to a product and rattle off the features and benefits.They waste no time. Time is money. If you are a hard nut to crack , they will leave you alone for a while and they move on to another victim.No time to know your needs.Their needs are more important.
They don't know what is insurance planning. Don't talk about investment.You may hear them talking about Dow Jones and sub prime but they don't know what they are; they may think it is a dog misspelled. Some know a little bit more like S&P (scissor and paper);it is fashionable these days among insurance salesmen;they are trying to impress,.They suddenly become investment gurus over night, something unheard of many years ago.If you ask them about the best funds. They seem to know a lot but load of rubbish. They will give all the past statistics and recommend the lowest priced fund as the cheapest and under valued and even predict when is the best time to buy and sell.
Risk profiling is their specialty.They are so adept at it.
No wonder the CPF is strewn with lots of losses and insufficient broken retirees' balances. If the medisave account is investable this maybe even get wiped out by the investment expert insurance salesmen.By now I am sure you heard or approached by them persuading you to invest your SMRA before CPF locks them away.

I advise you to read Dr. Money"s articles posted here for your knowledge so that you will be more careful and discerning when approached by insurance salesmen.
Dr. Money is pro YOU, the consumers. Both Mr. Tan and him are your protector. Heed them or be at your own peril.; December 01, 2007 11:59 AM
Unknown said...: open yr ears & eyes..there's lots of gd advise jus waiting to be taken off the shelves somewhere out there..; December 01, 2007 11:33 PM
hongjun said...: If I am correct, some independent financial advisers are able to provide advice on loans.

There are advisers around who are not merely product sellers. They in fact do a proper financial assessment on you before pluging suitable policies for you. We should not stereotype them.

Cheers
hongjun; December 02, 2007 1:27 AM