"I am planning my retirement in 10 years and want to consolidate my multiple Super funds, can a financial adviser give me advice just in the area of Superannuation and retirement planning?"
- Question from Sando in Adelaide
Top answer provided by:
Onur Serbest
Hello Sando,
A financial adviser can limit their scope of advice to superannuation however before doing so, they should determine if it’s in your best interest to do so. Financial planning, specifically retirement planning, generally involves a lot of considerations to explore before any limitation is applied to the advice given.
An adviser’s process should always start with understanding their client’s position and objectives before providing a solution. It is not uncommon for prospective clients to approach an Adviser with what they believe to be their one and only need. Whilst this need may be the core reason you are seeking advice, an Adviser’s job is to identify other external factors to ensure that their advice will place their client in a better position.
Typically, a retirement plan will seek to uncover the following:
- Time frame to retirement
- Income and work hours in the lead up to retirement
- Lifestyle expenditure pre and post retirement
- Anticipated changes to lifestyle, housing, and assets
- Eligibility for Centrelink (short and long term)
- Any lump sum expenses expected to be incurred
Depending on the individual/couple, the above considerations will be subject to change, especially with 10 years until retirement, however for the purpose of providing an example, you can see how above variables could easily change one’s lifestyle and financial situation significantly.
Although superannuation is often considered one of the most important retirement assets (given it’s concessionally taxed environment, liquidity, and investment flexibility), it is often not the only one. For example, many retirees maintain investment properties, shares, fixed interest investments and other assets outside of the superannuation environment. If this is the case, your retirement plan will need to factor these in as they will form part of the overall picture.
In conclusion to the above, Although an Adviser can limit the scope of advice to superannuation (including super consolidation), this should only happen when above factors are considered, and consequences of excluding them are clearly explained to the client. Please speak to an Authorised Financial Planner for further guidance.
Regards,
Onur
While the Adviser Ratings Website facilitates the question and answer functionality, all such communications are between users and authorised financial advisers, of which Adviser Ratings has no affiliation. Adviser Ratings is not the advice provider and does not provide financial product advice and only provides information that is general in nature.
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