These past few weeks I've had the opportunity to be very grateful for the value of financial advice.
Both my parents are 80 years old. My dad's health has recently become more challenging and it has become very difficult for my mom to take care of herself. Like many families in this situation, my siblings and I realized we needed to start thinking about care.
As 'Finance One' of the four of us, it is my responsibility to look at the money side of things. So, last weekend, I was presented with that proverbial shoebox of papers that usually sits at the bottom of the closet: the entire financial record of my parents' lives.
My parents are determined to stay in their home, but the care required will be expensive, as you will know if you have advised clients in similar circumstances.
My siblings and I had no idea what my parents' financial situation was. He was always careful, he never had any debt. But how much money they needed to survive, and whether they had anything saved for a rainy day, we did not know.
Both of my parents are educated, thoughtful people, and yet now, like many people in later life, they are increasingly insecure.
What I found in the pile of papers, however, was good news. He has ample amount of cash and at the time of retirement, he had taken out an annuity which provides a reasonable income every month. That annuity is a joint life policy, so it will continue to meet my mother's needs if my father dies before her. Whoever advised him on retirement did a good job.
And, at the bottom of the pile, I found a piece of paper. Twenty years ago also he had bought a bond on financial advice. By pure coincidence, it matures this month. This will provide enough funds to take care of my father for as long as he needs it.
I know my mother, and I know she would need to trust an advisor to do anything other than leave that money in the bank. The confidence that the consultant would have instilled in him has made a huge difference to my parents' comfort and well-being and the options now available to them.
Both bonds and annuities were sold to them in the days before RDR. It's possible that neither was the 'perfect' product for their needs, nor even the cheapest one. Still, over the years, those products have done the job. And those two pieces of one-time advice have proven transformative.
This experience has deepened my belief in something that has been my north star throughout my career. Financial advice is powerful; Not just for the richest people, but for everyone.
a generational opportunity
The regulatory will to tackle the advice gap is now strong. Targeted support has the potential to make a big difference for some people, especially those at the beginning of their journey. But will this work for my parents? It's unlikely that those signals would have given my mother the confidence to act.
For clients who rely on personal trust, the only way to take action is to seek advice from those who need it. Fortunately, a combination of regulation and technological change means we now have a generational opportunity to do so.
As you well know, providing financial advice has historically been expensive and time-consuming. Due to regulatory changes, cost-to-service pressures have widened the advice gap within companies, largely parallel to the country.
According to Dynamic Planner's Advise 2025 survey, 66 per cent of advisory firms increased the minimum investable assets in view of consumer fees. And what was once yesterday's challenge – an aging customer base – is now today's reality.
On average, advising companies now have more clients in their 80s and 90s than in their 40s. Companies know they need to onboard more, younger customers, but the economics aren't stable.
However, technology is already doing much of the heavy lifting. As companies clean up their data, connect their systems and gain the efficiency of automation, processes that once took hours or even days are now down to minutes. Now, with the promise of AI becoming a reality, tasks ranging from writing meetings and updating facts to checking compliance and suitability can be done in seconds without any pain.
As a result, meaningful progress on cost-to-service is on the horizon. And harnessing the productivity dividend has the potential to enable each advisor to serve as many clients as they choose – profitably, compliantly, and at scale.
This change will allow companies to overcome their own advice deficiencies, grow and thrive. And it will unlock access to trusted advice for millions of people, so they can fund the things that matter most to them, when they need it most.
Ben Goss is chief executive of Dynamic Planner