The concept behind it is really very simple: if you want your money to go further and to last longer, you need to have a plan.
Founder Rory Scott is no stranger to wealth management. He’s been working with wealth management firms for decades and also ran his own successful wealth management business. Rory explains wealth management and why he believes it’s an essential service.
What is wealth management?
If you are fairly new to the concept of wealth management, it might seem like a complicated and impenetrable world. The concept behind it is really very simple: if you want your money to go further and to last longer, you need to have a plan.
Wealth management is all about helping you to understand where you are financially and coming up with innovative, carefully-planned ways to get you and your finances where you want them to be.
Here’s what I know about wealth management
When I launched my own wealth management company, I used to tell my team that the people looking to use our services expected three things from us:
• Advice on how to grow their wealth
• Advice on how to protect their wealth
• Advice on how to pass on their wealth
Now, within these broad categories, there are several sophisticated ways that experienced and well-qualified wealth managers can help. The foundation of everything related to wealth management falls into one of these three categories. However, wealth management isn’t just about offering advice, it’s about recommending or creating the products and services that will help you to achieve the outcomes you require.
Growing wealth
A wealth management professional will be able to offer you comprehensive advice on how to invest in ways that will allow you to grow your wealth over time. They’ll start by taking a ‘deep dive’ into your attitude towards investing, and how much risk you’re willing to take, and then recommend investments that suit your objectives.
A wealth manager will be ideally placed to make investment recommendations that you would struggle to find elsewhere. They will have access to the most sophisticated investment strategies and can create portfolios unique to you.
Of course, one of the reasons you might be looking to grow your wealth could be to help fund your retirement. A wealth manager is ideally positioned to help to create a retirement strategy that will not only help you work out how much money you will need during retirement, but the right investment strategies to help ensure your money reaches its target.
Protecting wealth
When it comes to wealth management, protecting your wealth is just as important. Services offered by wealth managers can include tailored insurance policies designed specifically to meet your needs. For example, you might want life insurance that pays out when you die, insurance that covers specific activities (such as flying aircraft or sailing), or specific policies that protect your assets (including your property) or your income.
If you run your own company, a wealth manager can also help to arrange insurance for your business as well as cover any company directors, shareholders or other family interests.
When it comes to protecting your wealth, it’s important to ensure that all the angles are covered – there’s nothing worse than taking out an insurance policy and then finding it doesn’t cover a particular set of circumstances when they happen. As we used to tell clients in my wealth management business, the real value of partnering with a wealth manager is that the solutions they provide to you are tailor-made, rather than being ‘off-the-shelf’. It’s all about getting a piece of mind.
Passing on wealth
The third, but by no means the least important, aspect of wealth management is that it is designed to help you to pass on the wealth – that you have worked so hard to grow and protect – to your loved ones when the time comes.
I used to make sure that the wealth management professionals with my company saw it as part of their role to really get to know their clients – and find out about their families – because this was the best way to help them to pass on their wealth.
A wealth manager can help you to determine who gets the assets you plan on leaving as part of your estate – reducing the likelihood of any family feuds over their inheritance. Your wealth manager can also help to make sure your estate doesn’t get caught by large inheritance tax bills, as well as setting up specific arrangements such as trusts that can give you much greater control over who gets access to your estate, and when.
If you run your own company, passing on wealth could include succession planning for your business, or even helping to sell the business to a third party.
A wealth manager consistent with your values
Those are the three central aims of wealth management, but my experience tells me that there’s another reason why people visit a wealth manager: they’re hoping to find a company or a person that shares their values and their views about money and will deliver a service that upholds those values. For most people, this means finding a wealth manager who will treat you in a way that makes you feel valued, regardless of how much money or assets you have.
A modern relationship with a wealth manager should also involve choosing investments that closely align with your personal views. Wealth management is no longer just about making as much money as possible – it can (and should) be about investing in ways that make a positive contribution to society.
Is wealth management right for me?
Most people have busy lives and simply don’t have the time, or the inclination, to spend the time necessary to focus on long-term financial decisions. Having a qualified wealth management expert in your corner, someone who knows you and your personal goals and objectives, could be the wisest financial decision you make.
Where can I find the top wealth managers?
Over the years, I’ve worked with the best wealth managers in the UK. At comparewealthmanagers.com we’ve also created a service that allows us to gather information from a panel of top wealth managers. To find the right wealth manager to suit your personal needs, just answer a few questions and we’ll gladly do the rest.
