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What is the value of a financial advisor for his or her clients? It's a question the advisory industry has been grappling with for years to help justify fees in a world where investment costs have been declining and competition from lower-cost digital advisors has been growing.
Fidelity defines the value of financial advice as the Value Stack pyramid, with managing money at the bottom, fulfillment at the top, and achieving goals and peace of mind in between.
Now Vanguard has developed its own three-part framework for assessing the value of financial advice, beyond investment advice, based on research using client data from Vanguard Personal Advisor Services (PAS), a hybrid service combining digital and human advice.
"The advisory industry is increasingly interested in clarifying what constitutes value for investors and how to assess value for money paid," according to a new Vanguard report, Assessing the Value of Advice, written by Cynthia Pagliaro, senior research analyst with the Vanguard Center for Investor Research, and Stephen Utkus, principal and director of the center.
"Our framework demonstrates the importance of defining value in the broadest sense, going beyond portfolio outcomes to include both financial outcomes and emotional well-being. In time the industry will need to develop widely acceptable and comparable measures that encompass all three dimensions."
All three elements were developed based on data from analysis of PAS client accounts, whose median age was near 65 and median portfolio balances were between $250,000 and $500,000 (PAS has a minimum account balance of $50,000 and charges a 0.30% annual fee for accounts of less than $5 million.)
Portfolio Value: Quality of Portfolio Construction
Portfolio value can be quantified in several ways, measuring risk-adjusted returns, the impact of taxes and portfolio fees on returns and diversification. The Vanguard paper focused on diversification, comparing the portfolio construction decisions of more than 44,000 clients six months after they had switch from self-directed Vanguard accounts to PAS.
Vanguard found that portfolio diversification increased after investors made the switch, reducing cash allocations from 16% to 1% and increasing bond allocations from 26% to 39%. (Remember: Most of these investors were near retirement age.)
