Is financial advice the key to avoiding divorce?

Speaking at a Morningstar International Women’s Day event in Sydney last week, Dominique Bergel-Grant, founder and financial adviser at Leapfrog Financial and a specialist in divorce planning, said that women particularly, should treat financial education as similar to physical health.

“I think the biggest thing is treating financial education as you do going to the gym and having a personal trainer or going to yoga or whatever it is that you love to do,” Bergel-Grant said.

“Commit to listening to amazing podcasts about money learning, treating that as an ongoing, lifelong journey of our finances, to build your own competence and to be able to go, ‘I know where all of our money is, I’m engaged and I’m actually completely aware of where it is that we’re heading’.”

The need for people, and women specifically, to understand their financial position, she said, is why having a financial adviser can help clients avoid divorce.

“It’s probably why I always say financial planners are the biggest secret to keeping your marriage together,” Bergel-Grant said.

“If you ask most financial planners, very few of their clients actually ended up in divorce, and that’s because they’ve got an independent person constantly talking to them about their goals, where are they spending their money? What are the things that they actually want to achieve in life?

“So, there’s that goal alignment, complete financial transparency, and huge benefits behind the scenes because of that.”

Also speaking at the event, Rachel White, head of financial adviser services at Vanguard Australia, added that seeking advice doesn’t necessarily need to be an ongoing relationship if the cost is out of reach.

“I think sometimes with financial advice, we think about it as this comprehensive, ongoing relationship that we need to develop that can be potentially at a cost that is prohibitive for some, but it doesn’t need to be like that,” White said.

She likened the relationship to seeking help from a counsellor or physio when experiencing mental or physical anguish.

“You might only see them once and then you’re feeling good, you’re back on track, you’ve got some exercises and you’re away. Yet, when it comes to finances, we actually don’t think like that,” White said.

“But what might be right for you is a once off conversation to say, ‘Hey, I just need a bit of help, super’s a bit of a mystery for me. We’ve talked about low fees, what do low fees actually mean? We’ve talked about [how] I need to contribute more? What does that actually look like?’

“That conversation for you might be enough and you might walk away saying, ‘Great, I’m actually feeling pretty good for the next 10 or 15 years, I’ve got a direction, I’ve got a path and feeling much more confident’.”

This puts the importance on understanding what the client actually needs, rather than a prescriptive system for everyone, White said.

“It doesn’t have to be that full, comprehensive, long-term relationship, which may be what you need, but it may not,” she said.

“I think it’s been tough from a regulatory environment for advisers to actually be able to give that advice, but we’re seeing some change that is really hoping to open up that space and allow Australians and women to actually get access to that.”