How to write the perfect suitability letter

Isn't that just common sense?

I eagerly clicked this link when it came up because I thought it would, at last, address the issue that writing 25 pages in a suitability letter to a client with all of the FSA requirements is no longer Treating Customers Fairly but is just a bombardment of information in one document to prevent complaints being upheld at a later date. But this article is just a common sense approach to all letters - not just suitability ones. I'm just a little disappointed with the lack of actual content that the heading implies and feel this is just basic confirmation of what we already do. I am sure it is not meant to be insulting in any way but that exactly how it made me feel.

Posted by: Lorna

Back Office advice.

Paraplanners giving IFA's tips, go and boil ya head! Paraplanners are incapable of doing the whole job and are second only to compliance people in the order of lurking. Please don't over inflate your importance as the client needs to be created before the report.

Posted by: Peter Taylor

Nambypamby

Bearing in mind the average age of an IFA (as opposed to a new fangled 'paraplanner'?) is around 54 years, you'd think most of us already have enough experience in writing business letters. So who's training who here? Suitability letters are a bit like 'Jackanory' to the majority of (established) clients of most IFA's. They've been reading them since 1987,(and well before that in my case) but they are so hacked off with the repetitive well worn words and phrases in the content, which has become boring and treats them like children just arrived from Mars, that they just file them or chuck them away as waste paper nowadays. Did i hear someone say we must include TCF?- well, i would simply say that if treating customers fairly didn't exist, then some bright IFA would have invented it long before now as being the best possible way to succeed in our industry- or any other one for that matter. Once again, a jackanory-like scheme borne of the commercially immature. Now i wonder who they might be?

Posted by: N.Pamby.

Put your claws away!

What with the comments on NMA articles and now here I'm seriously starting to doubt the commitment to professionalism from the IFA world. Real professionals aren't as sharp tongued as you lot but give a more measured consideration. This seems to be a lad who wants to be heard and probably will become a very good adviser in the future so stop running him down.

Posted by: Stuart

Actually.....

I don't doubt the commitment of IFAs to professionalism, it's actually their ability to become professionals considering their low level starting point. These comments show there is a long way to go. Good luck though.

Posted by: Stuart

Nambypamby

What is this talk about professionals and professionalism? If IFA's mean being more like solicitors and accountants, the legal and accountancy BUSINESSES are also now undergoing profound upheaval, and not just because of the recession. Clients have become more money conscious and are demanding alternatives to hourly billing.Routine work is being outsourced to places such as India. Software that can sort through digital records for evidence is making it harder to sustain a business model in which partners 'sit atop a pyramid with a fat base of associates', who do expensive, though often routine, work. Fee earners, however well qualified academically, must bring home the bacon or else they are out on their ears. Business models are changing all around the so-called professions. Make no mistake, Lawyering especially is much more of a sales and marketing business than a profession today. And only the tightly business-focussed will survive by standing out. But this has nothing to do with passing a couple more childish exams which cannot turn IFA's into 'professionals'. The truth is there are no professions anymore. The best we can do is to run our businesses in ethical way, rather than the jackanory-like prescriptive system employed at the present time.

Posted by: N.Pamby

I rest my case

If you don't believe in professionalism... My clients definitely want to talk to a professional and having trained as a fee based adviser in accountancy practices back in 1998 I completely disagree with you Mr Pamby. Professionalism is something you have instilled in you at outset and is difficult to achieve if you have always been trained to generate the most commission possible, regardless of what is best for the client. I can see where you are coming from so let's say we are both right.

Posted by: Stuart