Adviser details why Levy has done a ‘fantastic’ job

Speaking on a recent episode of the ifa podcast, the founder and director of Neilson & Co Wealth Management, Ben Neilson, praised the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) lead, Michelle Levy, for doing a “fantastic” job.

Mr Neilson said Ms Levy deserves praise for navigating her way through an “incredibly complicated” piece of “building-block-based legislation” and to high degree.

“If we look at between four and nine recommendations that a practitioner-based benefit, they’re just amazing,” Mr Neilson opined.

Unlike many of his peers, Mr Neilson supports Ms Levy’s recommendation to permit superannuation funds to offer limited advice, a recommendation that he believes would allow advisers to reduce the amount of time they spend on tasks that do not have a tangible impact on their clients.

“If we reduce the amount of thing we have to do while increasing our regulatory adherence, we can actually service more people faster with fewer outgoings,” Mr Neilson explained.

“If I say I’m going to do super and insurance for someone around my age, mid-30s, with maybe a kid, that sort of thing, you’re probably looking at between $2,000 to $4,000 […] or we can charge you $600 and you go to that product and get a portion of those things done and report back to us when they have been done. We’re actually decreasing our risk but increasing the amount of people we can service.”

Mr Neilson explained advisers should reconsider Ms Levy’s proposals regarding non-relevant providers by stress testing them against real-life scenarios.

“Every adviser in Australia is going to get to a point, we’re at it now, we’ve got about 200 ongoing clients and unless I feel like working Saturdays, we can’t really take on much more,” he said.

“So, if I can reduce the amount of time I spend on each individual case and say these things need to be done, can you please do them … There’s an opportunity for us to combine, we do the part that needs professional expertise, and someone else, be it a non-relevant provider or the consumer themselves, do the part that’s not that important.”

Mr Neilson believes that this could help advice develop into a true profession.

Conceding that superannuation funds are “not very good” at providing advice, Mr Neilson clarified that Ms Levy has not suggested that they do so. 

“The one true barrier to accessing advice is cost and if I include cost in its application of complexity, there is going to be a part that the superannuation providers can do, they can do nominations, they can do investment philosophy, they can do little things like that, but they can’t generally sit with the client and say what does this actually mean to you and hold their hand.

“If we are to develop into a true profession, we can do the complex stuff very well and reduce the cost while increasing the value as a result,” he said.

In Mr Neilson’s hypothetical world, advisers would present their clients with a full list of actions that they would need to implement to achieve their financial goals. The list would be divided into two columns, one representing tasks of critical value that an adviser needs to manage, and the other reflecting tasks that the client could manage on their own or with the help of a non-relevant provider.

“We’ll bill for the top end, you [client] figure out the bottom end. If they want us to do it, we’ll do it, but we need to let them know it’s expensive. That way we change the whole narrative of financial planning,” Mr Neilson said.

To hear more from Mr Nielson, click here.