Fortunately, the fiduciary rule making headlines is enough of a red flag to alert consumers who care about the quality of the financial advice they\u2019re paying for. So if the fiduciary rule is going away, does it mean that high-quality, fiduciary-level advice is also no longer accessible? Thankfully, the answer is no, not at all. All you need is to understand that advisors play by two different sets of rules and that one set demands a much higher standard than the other. You, the consumer, are holding all the cards and can choose to work only with advisors who bother to practice at the higher fiduciary standard.<\/p>\n
You do have a choice<\/strong><\/p>\n Brokers and insurance agents are salespeople and they\u2019re paid to sell transactions on behalf of their firms. They do not work for you. They work in their firms\u2019 best interests which begs the question: who\u2019s to say a salesperson\u2019s advice is subpar compared to a fiduciary advisor? financial advice you get from brokers and insurance agents is subpar? Believe it or not, it\u2019s the brokers and insurance agents themselves. They are lobbying hard to be allowed to stick to the lowest possible standard of responsibility to you, the client. Independent financial advisors who are registered with the state or SEC can\u2019t hide behind their firms. Independent advisors have a different business model. Those advisors must legally adhere to the higher \u2018best interest\u2019 standard. The fact is, you can choose to engage with any number of fiduciary advisors who work only and directly for you, and who are willing to sign an oath to that effect. A competent fiduciary financial advisor doesn\u2019t sell investments. That doesn\u2019t guarantee competency, but he is much more likely to have the education and experience to provide detailed financial planning and cash flow analysis. Most brokers cannot offer this level of analysis because they get paid to sell, not to plan. At least now you know there is a higher fiduciary standard of conduct and it\u2019s not going away, but only about 10% of financial advisors follow the fiduciary standard. This is why you have to choose wisely.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your own financial strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re about to step over the starting line into retirement, a thorough look at your cash flow and stress-testing the amount you plan to withdraw from your savings each year in retirement are critically important. It\u2019s about developing a plan that helps prevent from running out of money in retirement. Once you know where you stand, then you can you intelligently execute on your investment strategy. Brokers and insurance agents often skip over the critical planning details and dive right into a strong sales pitch about how the products they sell will supposedly rise when the markets are up, and then protect you from losses when it falls. If you didn\u2019t know better, you might invest all of your savings out of fear of missing out. What most people find out much later is that these products, like variable annuities, come with many complicated strings attached and offer much lower returns with much higher costs and punitive early withdrawal fees.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t need anyone to make a rule to protect yourself. Just make your own fiduciary rule: don\u2019t hire an investment advisor who cannot sign a fiduciary oath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The whole idea behind the Department of Labor\u2019s Fiduciary Rule was to protect consumers from the blatant conflicts of interest that are standard operating practice in [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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