Page 248 - DMGT515_PERSONAL_FINANCIAL_PLANNING

Unit 13: Strategies of putting together a Complete Financial Plan

Co-ordination with Other Professionals Notes

The above action list details advice or service required from other professionals. These specialists
are the general insurance consultant/broker, the life insurance and income protection insurance
adviser and the solicitor.
Unless you have received written authorisation from the person(s) to discuss their situation
with the other professionals, you should not discuss any aspect of the person’s situation. Indeed,
some may view disclosure of the person’s name to another party as a breach of privacy and so
you should only move to discuss a person’s situation with another professional upon receipt of
written authorisation from the person(s).
Once you have received written authority from the person, you may then telephone or write to
the other professional seeking to arrange appointments for the person(s) with the other
professional(s). Professional protocol dictates that formal correspondence should introduce the
person(s) to the other adviser/professional such as below:
Dear Mr./Mrs……………
We write to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Person for whom we act as financial planners.
Mr. and Mrs. Person heme instructed us to liase with you in relation to their need for…..advice.

In our analysis of Mr. and Mrs. Person’s situation, we believe that they are in need of insurance/
legal advice as follows:
If you require further information in relation to Mr. and Mrs. Person’s requirements, please
telephone us.
Yours sincerely

Internal Implementation Procedures

When the person has either accepted the financial planner’s recommendations, or alternatively
chosen not to accept the advice, the person’s records need to be transferred to the practice’s
central administration.
For the person who is proceeding to accept the advice, this may simply mean that the file, both
paper and computer, continue in their existing formats and location within the practice. For
large financial planning firms, there may be centralised administration systems maintain all
paper and computer file records for each person. Such firms have their own processes with
which the financial planner must comply in order to maintain accurate and com-plete person
data. The smaller financial planner may have a personal assistant/secretary who will initiate
and maintain paper and computer files for each person.

Whereas for the ‘person’ who has chosen not to accept the advice and therefore chosen not to
become a person, both the paper and computer file should be transferred to a ‘not proceeded
with’ filing category. In this situation, it remains vital that the financial planner/firm retain all
such records generated to date as a means of verifying or substantiating advice if legal action
should ever arise against the planner/firm in the future. While record keeping from a legal
defence perspective is important, it may also be that the ‘person’ chooses not to become a person
at the time of the plan preparation, but may choose to seek further advice or act on the advice
with the planner/firm at a later date. As such, it is simply a process of resurrecting the file, both
paper and computer, to provide service again to this person.
While methods of file/record keeping will vary from firm to firm, it is essential that whichever
system is adopted by a firm, it should be used consistently across the firm by all practitioners
and staff.

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