Savings & Investments
Understanding how you feel about risk
You may already have some understanding of investment risk and reward but feel unsure of how best to invest your money – after all, none of us have a crystal ball allowing us to see the future.
As we’ll be advising you on investments, we’ll need to understand your current attitude to investment risk and capacity for loss, which includes taking into account those circumstances in your life which could affect this both now and in the future.
Your capacity to loss may differ depending on the pot of money being considered. For example, a pension fund which won’t be needed for another 30 years might be invested very differently to money which will be needed to fund for your children’s education 10 years from now.
This is an important part of being able to advise you, so we use risk modelling tools provided by one of the leading software technology firms.
We’ll use a set of clear and carefully structured questions which focus on how you feel about risk to your savings and investments, to help us assess and clearly identify your risk profile. Once we’ve done this together, we’ll then discuss the final risk profile with you, to be sure it best describes you, and how you want your money to be invested, before we go on to recommend a solution to match.
As all investments, including those recommended by us, carry a certain level of risk to the capital you’re looking to invest, any recommendation we make will look to minimise these in line with your attitude to investment risk and we’ll explain both the risks of any investment we recommend, together with the benefits, to you clearly, and make sure you understand them fully.
We’ll also consider your existing investments, and review these to make sure they’re fit for purpose and still the best-suited to meet your financial goals. This will usually involve us first obtaining your authority to contact each of your plan providers and request full plan information.
Our review services are fee based, but we’ll always agree the fee with you before we undertake any work on your behalf. This is because we want you to have all the information you need to clearly consider if our services are right for you, before you decide if you would like to proceed.