Certainly, visiting your financial planner isn’t exactly news, any more than having an appointment with your accountant or getting your teeth cleaned would be news. It isn’t, at least, unless you are a financial planner yourself.
When people who know I am a financial planner heard me mention visiting my financial planner, their immediate responses were raised eyebrows. The reactions fell into two categories. The first is best summed up by the question one client asked me: “Should I be worried?”
She was wondering why on earth her financial planner needed a financial planner and whether that was an indication of my incompetence. Certainly, financial planners should be capable of doing their own financial planning, right? In reality, that is no more true than saying physicians should be capable of taking care of all their family members’ medical problems, or attorneys representing themselves in court, or therapists doing their own therapy.
The second response was just the opposite. As another client remarked, “That’s a pretty strong endorsement of your profession, that you think so highly of your services you seek them out from a peer.”
This latter reaction sums up my own view. I have gained significant benefits from having my
It also provides more security for my wife. First of all, she is more fully involved in our financial planning. In addition, if I should die prematurely, my family would not be left stranded. If a financial planner who is doing his family’s planning dies, family members have lost their financial planner just at the time they need one the most. My wife draws a lot of reassurance from knowing that, if I died tomorrow, there would be someone she could lean on to help her through the difficult legal and financial process of cleaning up and distributing an estate.
Perhaps the most significant benefit, as far as my clients are concerned, is that having my own planner gives me a chance to sit on the other side of the desk and experience what my clients experience. That has had a profound impact on my interactions with clients. For example, at one time I gave clients a 42-page form to fill out. Then I had to complete one of those forms myself. I’ve never given one to a client again.