The chances are, if you ask five different people what a paraplanner is, you will get five different responses. If you ask someone outside of the financial services profession, you’ll likely get a blank look, followed up by “A parawhat?”
If you’ve ever spoken to a financial adviser, you’ll have discussed with them your existing policies, your financial situation and what you want to achieve. The financial adviser goes away, and when he or she returns, they will explain to you what you have, and what you need to do to achieve your objectives, together with a comprehensive recommendation report, cashflow modelling projections and maybe some paperwork to complete.
In a lot of cases, it might be the adviser who carries out the analysis, does the research and writes the report, as well as creating the cashflow projections and fund choices for your investments. A recent ‘Times’ article indicated that the average hourly rate for financial advice is £185, so you can see that the cost of doing all this work can quickly mount up, and many advisers would rather speak to people than write a report!
So they may choose to appoint a paraplanner to do this work for them. This can be either by employing one or by using an outsourced paraplanner. While an in-house paraplanner has its obvious advantages, outsourcing this part of your work can have big advantages too. Not only are you saving on a regular salary, National Insurance and pension contributions, there is also the desk space, IT and other overheads that come with employing a member of staff.
With outsourcing, you use and pay for the service as and when you need it. Any other work the Paraplanner does (for example, keeping their knowledge up to date with exams, Continuing Professional Development, etc) is not charged to you.
If you’re unsure as to whether you should employ or outsource, you could test the water first. Why not contact me by email for an informal discussion at info@havenparaplanning.co.uk. I can do the stuff you don’t want to do, and free you up to do the stuff you enjoy!