Perception of adviser performance mostly positive

Advisers not held accountable

By Victoria Papandrea
Fri 13 Jun 2008

Despite the current market turmoil, investors are not holding their advisers accountable for lower investment returns, a study has found.

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Clients' perceptions of their financial planner's performance are mostly positive despite continuing uncertainty in the market, the Lifeplan Financial Advice Satisfaction Index found.

Perceptions of their adviser's performance by both young and old investors over the past six months has increased by 7 per cent, the bi-yearly index revealed.

Lifeplan general manager of strategy and development Matt Walsh said the findings offered an interesting insight into client perceptions of their adviser.

"We can speculate that they aren't holding their planner to account as they understand how the market is performing and are perhaps recognising that their portfolio is appropriate," Walsh said.

"Younger investors were more positive than older investors perhaps because of the recognition they have time to recoup any losses."

However, the index findings also indicated a slight drop in the overall measure of financial advice satisfaction from 74.3 per cent to 73.2 per cent.

The decline is a result of certain pockets of investors, namely the over 60's segment, who have scored their advisers lower in terms of technical quality and trust, Walsh said.

Older investors are closer to their investment horizon so were less positive, due to the large absolute dollar impact the market fluctuations have caused, he said.

The Index, based on an academic study of around 500 investors, is prepared by the University of Adelaide's International Centre for Financial Services (ICFS) and sponsored by Lifeplan Funds Management.

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