Questions to ask your advisor
Questions to ask of anyone you are currently working with or are considering working with to assist you in managing your investment portfolio.
1. Are you acting as a broker, registered representative or investment advisor representative (IAR) on our account?
If the answer is not a registered investment advisor, they are not required to have the highest level of fiduciary care and are not held to a “prudent person” standard of care. Also, their duty of loyalty may not be only to you as their client.
Bosch Financial / IFP will operate as a registered investment advisor on this account.
2. If you are acting as a Registered Investment Advisor, are you part of a corporate RIA program, or do you operate as an independent RIA?
If the answer is not an independent registered investment advisor, then a corporate entity controls the decisions of the RIA. Changes are therefore not always in control of the RIA, or IAR representative.
Bosch Financial / IFP operate as an independent Registered Investment Advisor.
3. If you are acting as an independent RIA, are you registered with the SEC or a state?
If the answer is a state and not the SEC, the state’s regulators and not the SEC regulators oversee the operations of the RIA. It is our opinion due to the resources available the SEC can regulate RIA’s with more oversight than a state. Therefore, we feel it is important to be with an SEC registered investment advisor.
Bosch Financial / IFP is a Securities & Exchange Commission Registered Investment Advisory firm.
4. Will you acknowledge your status as a fiduciary in writing?
Bosch Financial will acknowledge their status as a fiduciary in writing through your investment advisory agreement.
5. If you are acting as an independent SEC Registered Investment Advisor, will I be working with a team of advisors, or just one advisor?
We feel that having more than one experienced advisor working on a client’s account is the most appropriate way to manage all of the critical details. We also feel that having a team of prudent professionals with varied experiences and bodies of knowledge has the potential to provide the best results.
Our staff works as a team for each one of our clients to help assure we are providing the highest level of fiduciary care on our client’s accounts.
6. Will my account be put into a third party money management arrangement such as a “managed money account”, Separately Managed Account or other account that my team of advisors does not have discretion over? In other words, can my advisory team change the investments or SMA’s or is that decision up to a third party manager I have never met?
We have concerns about the data points available for analysis when a third party money manager or separately managed account is used. We feel that your personalized Investment Policy Statement cannot be properly monitored using a third party manager.
Your team of advisors at Bosch Financial has the authority and discretion to change money managers based on a predetermined set of guidelines we agree to in your personalized, formal, written Investment Policy Statement.
7. Will you provide me with a personal, written and formalized Investment Policy Statement?
An Investment Policy Statement is the corner stone to effective money management. It puts into writing the objectives, goals, time horizon and risk tolerance of the investor. It determines what asset classes to use and what asset allocation is appropriate. It formalizes a procedure to choose money managers and how the account will be monitored.
Bosch Financial will provide you with a personal, written and formalized Investment Policy Statement.
8. What process do you use for monitoring and managing my account?
We feel that to effectively manage an investment account properly that there must be a formalized process in place. We believe this process should adhere to the highest standards and be governed by the generally accepted practices that a prudent person would use.
Bosch Financial will assist in the preparation of an Investment Policy Statement (IPS) that is designed to provide a prudent investment process that will be consistently applied using the highest global fiduciary standards. We will utilize a predetermined set of criteria set forth in your IPS to screen all money managers. We use watch lists to continually monitor your money managers to make sure they meet minimum requirements determined in your IPS. We use independent data points for this analysis.
9. What process do you use to monitor my account regarding fees and expenses?
Fees and expenses can be a drag on performance. It is important to confirm that the fees and expenses being charged by money managers are appropriate.
We use independent data points and analysis to assure that the fees and expenses being charged by money managers are fair and reasonable for the services provided, and consistent with comparably services of peers.
10. Does your firm have an AIF or AIFA designee on staff to analyze whether your procedures conform to the highest global fiduciary standards?
Fi360 is an independent firm that assists those serving as fiduciaries with the tools, training and resources to help pursue the highest globally recognized fiduciary standards. They offer the Professional Designations Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF) and Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst (AIFA) to help the designee understand their role as a fiduciary and how to implement procedures designed to adhere to the highest global fiduciary standards.
Bosch Financial does have an AIF designee on staff.