FAQ’s

Financial planning advice puts an expert in your corner to help you navigate the complex world of modern finance. At Surf Coast Wealth Management, we search for opportunities that can lead to improvements in your life and the lives of the people you care. We will devise realistic and attainable pathways that will capitalise on financial opportunities, vast or incremental, to help you achieve your financial potential. We can help you plan and manage your financial affairs to ensure your money is continuing to work in a way that improves your life. Whatever your situation, whatever your stage of life, there are key strategies that can be adopted to enhance the probabilities of reaching your goals. Keep in mind that financial planning strategies are not a ‘set and forget’ solution. The financial strategies of our clients can benefit from being actively engaged in the process as regulations change and new opportunities present.

Working with the financial professionals at Surf Coast Wealth Management is a transparent and inspiring process. We strive to balance our professionalism with the unique lifestyle that coastal living affords. It is our goal to ensure that you too enjoy this same balance while removing financial worry. It’s not always about the bottom line and working with a firm that can recognise what is important to you, is a big step in getting what you need from the advice process. Our progressive approach to how we provide our services removes any doubt about our intent. We want to see our clients thrive through our advice. We will take the time to walk you through our recommendations, answering your queries so that there is a clear understanding of how our advice will benefit you and your family. Advisers at Surf Coast Wealth Management are passionate about finance and passionate about helping our clients reach their full financial potential. Once you understand what sets us apart, you can be comfortable dealing with us and focus on how our advice can deliver tangible results. Education is a crucial facet of our client offering, and we understand that there are varying levels of interest. We have clients who want to develop a complete financial understanding, independence and self-sufficiency and those who are happy to know they are in good hands so they can focus on the more important things in their life.

Strategies in financial planning, are not ‘set and forget’ solutions. The financial position of clients can benefit from being actively engaged in the process as regulations and the investing landscape change. For that reason, we offer our clients our ‘Ongoing Services Program’. Our clients receive regular updates on changes that may impact them and have access to their adviser to discuss any change in their financial situation that may require further investigation and management. Knowledge is essential and having a working relationship with one of our advisers means you have access to this knowledge whenever you require.

Education is a crucial facet of our offering, and we understand that there are varying levels of interest. We have clients who want to develop financial independence and self-sufficiency and those who are happy to know they are in good hands so they can focus on the more important things in their life. We are happy to accommodate your needs and aspirations regardless of your level of enthusiasm for finance.

We are passionate about the field of finance and providing advice that can improve financial outcomes for our clients. We spend a lot of time researching how current dynamics will affect the financial landscape for our clients. We can,

1. Save you time and stress in dealing with these financial issues
2. Help you feel confident when making financial decisions
3. Help you prioritise trade-offs between lifestyle and financial goals
4. Investigate investment and insurance options
5. Make sense of financial & legal jargon to help you select the right insurance to protect you and your family
6. Complete necessary, but seemingly fastidious and tedious financial tasks ASAP, not when you find the time
7. Help increase your financial knowledge and confidence when dealing with your future

We offer our services on a strictly commission free, fee-for-service basis and our advice is fiercely non-biased. We put our client’s objectives at the forefront of every conversation and strategy.

We work for and are paid by, our clients. The relationship is clear and unambiguous. Critically we are a fee-for-service financial planning firm. We do not receive product commissions, upfront or trailing, for selling products, and we bill according to the complexity and time taken to complete clients financial request. Consequently, the products we recommend, have drastically discounted costs and premiums. This business model is a significant change in an industry built on upfront and trail commissions and we are thrilled to be working in this space.

We find the charging of commissions to be counter-intuitive to the goal of developing long-term financial strategies that are intended to create wealth for our clients. Fundamentally, accepting commissions makes our objective of helping you reach your financial objectives increasingly difficult. By offering our clients non-commission products, we can save our clients tens of thousands of dollars over the expected life of their policies, which will help deliver on the commitments we make to them. We gauge our success by the impact our advice has had on you achieving your goals. By not factoring in any remuneration to be paid to the adviser the cost of those recommended assets can fall from between 25 and 50% which is money that stays in your pocket or works towards your real financial goals.

• You are billed according to the financial advice you request.
• The cost will be relative to the scope, complexity and/or time required to research and complete
• In the long run, there is more money in your pocket
• We are not incentivised to sell clients a product
• We are not incentivised to recommend extensive sums of insurance
• There are no commissions factored into the cost of the products advised
• There is no trail or ongoing remuneration… ever
• If you chose to take a one-off advice document, the one-off fee will be all you pay
• Opting out of the ongoing service program stops all forms of remuneration for services we have provided

A risk profile identifies the acceptable level of risk a client is willing and able to take in seeking returns on their investments. The job of a financial planner is to then align the client’s risk profile, with that of their investments. Some of the factors taken into consideration are;

• Client objectives
• Client experience
• Level of discretionary income
• Investment time horizon.

There are typically four types of personal insurance options. Income Protection, Life insurance, Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) and Trauma Income Protection cover will replace your wage for a predetermined length of time while you are unable to work through illness, injury or accident. Life Insurance provides an agreed sum to your nominated beneficiaries or your estate in the event of your passing. Total and Permanent Disability will provide a sum (lump sum or income stream) if you are permanently unable to work again. This sum is designed to provide you and your family income support and debt relief for the rest of your life. Trauma cover will pay you a lump sum if you ever suffer from a specified illness or injury. It covers certain conditions to varying degrees. It will generally cover heart attack, stroke, cancer, MS, bypass surgery and a host of other conditions.