Assessing risk and the role of cashflows
I delivered a presentation at the IFP Conference yesterday which is featured in a story at Citywire/New Model Adviser.
In fact, there have been a couple of comments posted drawing attention to the apparent absence of assessing a client's capacity for loss and risk, the other risk factors involved and how an adviser needs to find a way to simplify the explanation of complex scenarios to make them easier to understand.
The main thrust of the presentation was to show how cash flow planning can be a valuable part of the process to work out what return - and therefore what level of risk - a client needs to take to achieve their objectives if, indeed, they need to take any risk at all.
Delegates who attended the session that I led at the IFP will realise that I did address these issues during my presentation but, unlike me, journalists don't have the luxury of covering every detail of a presentation because they just don't have the space to do it.
So - as well as publishing the slidedeck that I presented yesterday - I thought this post might serve as a bit of an addendum to the Citywire report by making it clear that attitude to risk is different to capacity for loss, and that advisers need to consider both issues as part of a robust suitability process.
I hope you enjoy the slides.