When you partner with a financial planning team, you want to be confident that they are focused on building a lifelong relationship, and not just making a sale. As part of our commitment to you, we designed our firm so that our primary source of revenue is the ongoing comprehensive financial advice we provide and not one-time product sales. Therefore, we have a minimum annual fee of $3,600 + HST ($300 + HST per month), which can be fully offset by the fees charged to your investment accounts as per our schedule below. For example, if you have investments over and above $290,000 with an annual fee rate of 1.25%, our minimum annual fee of $3,600 will be fully covered.
We charge based on a percentage of assets under management because, in most cases, the complexity of your situation and the time required to address it properly will increase along with the size of your portfolio. We use a sliding scale which means that the more you invest, the less you pay. When your portfolio value reaches a certain tier, the rate of that tier is used to calculate the total fee amount from dollar one for the billing period. We do not charge our fee on any cash, GICs, and money market funds held in your portfolio. Consequentially, these types of assets are not counted towards your portfolio value for fee calculation purposes.
We believe in transparency, so we choose to let you know the costs up front, as well as the value you should expect to receive from a trusted advisor. We use primarily F class mutual funds/managed portfolios, which separates the management (fund company) compensation from the compensation for financial planning advice. We have access to many fund companies and can often find a lower cost manufacturer (lower management fee) so that your total cost in working with us is often the same as or even less than you are currently paying.
Unfortunately, the Canadian insurance industry only supports an “upfront” compensation structure set by each insurance company. These schedules are relatively standard across the industry, so there is little difference in commissions paid for the same product offered by two different companies. We have no control over what is charged, nor are we legally allowed to rebate any commissions earned to our clients.
Despite this conflict of interest, our goal is to simplify your life and provide comprehensive financial advice, including the recommendation, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of insurance products when needed. As such, we pledge the following to mitigate this conflict:
To disclose to you in writing a schedule of compensation prior to your insurance application.
To only recommend policies and coverage required per your needs.
To “shop the market” for the best combination of product quality and lowest premium to meet your needs.
To provide service to you over the life of the policy regardless of renewal compensation.
Insurance products and services are provided through Assante Estate and Insurance Services Inc.