Personal financial advice: the occasional words of wisdom that most people could benefit from…

It may have been true in the past, but it’s not just the ‘rich’ who can benefit from expert financial advice. As our standard of living improves, more and more people find themselves buying all kinds of financial products. These products range from the simplest kinds of insurances – like life insurance or home insurance - to seemingly complicated things such as pension plans and unit trusts.

And as demand for these products grows, so does the choice on offer. But why oh why we hear you ask, are there so many options? What, for example, makes one mortgage so different to another, when all you’re doing is the same as the next person and borrowing money?

The answer is because the type of mortgage that suits your neighbour to a tee may not be quite so perfect for you and it could in fact be horribly wrong. The same is true of every other financial product – one man’s meat is another man’s you- know-what. So although you may not need an independent financial adviser (an IFA) to tell you what life insurance policies, mortgages or savings plans actually do, but you’ll almost certainly benefit from an adviser’s help when it comes to choosing the best policy, mortgage or savings plan for you.

Wherever you may live, we can put you in touch with an IFA …

Sesame is the hub of a 6,000-strong network of independent financial advisers, spread all over the country. Although our advisers vary in size from one-man bands to some of the biggest firms in the business, each and every one of our IFAs is professionally qualified to provide advice of the highest quality. Initially, your Sesame adviser will need to devote a lot of time to understanding your particular requirements and circumstances. Having done that, they will then look for the most appropriate options on your behalf. And that’s where we come in. One of our main roles is to keep tabs on what’s going on in the financial services market. New products emerge all the time and existing ones change constantly. So when that happens, we pass that knowledge on to our advisers. But there’s more to an advisers life than providing their clients with the most appropriate and up-to-date products. Every Sesame member has to keep abreast of, and work within, the regulations that the Financial Services Authority imposes on them. Again, it’s one of our jobs to make sure that our members are aware of those ever-changing rules and regs and follow them to the letter, day in, day out. What it all amounts to is that when you deal with a Sesame-appointed IFA, you’re dealing with someone who really knows their stuff and adheres to the highest ethical standards.

Now what do you have in mind?
Your independent financial adviser can help with all kinds of personal financial matters, specifically:

Helping choose the best mortgage for you
Selecting your Investments
Getting the most out of your savings
Arranging all kinds of insurances
Guidance on pension plans and retirement planning
Avoiding paying more tax than you need to

And on those occasions when all you want is an opinion or some general financial advice, say choosing a bank or a credit card for example, then talk to your adviser, you’ll find they’ll be pleased to help.

The Naked Adviser – the guide that gives jargon a good going over
You’re probably painfully aware that the subject of finance comes loaded with its own set of meaningless terms and abbreviations. Well fear not – the cavalry has arrived. We’ve put together a guide that tells you (mostly in words of one or two syllables) exactly what all that mumbo jumbo and general gibberish actually means. Whilst not exactly a riveting read The Naked Adviser is at least free and available here >

If you’d like know exactly what we do for IFAs, please click here >