The Fee Insights tab shows you how your own fees compare to the fees that other advisers have added to their VouchedFor profile.

Q: What is the Fee Report? 

The Fee Report is a shareable report. It summarises whether your fees are competitive, highly competitive or premium. It is available for you to share with colleagues, clients or others in your network if you choose to. 

Q: Why is VouchedFor doing this?

The aim of this feature is to deliver market insights to advisers and bring more transparency to this area. We also believe it can help remove cost as a barrier, by giving advisers a tool to demonstrate the value they deliver to clients - for example by showing their fees are competitive.

Q: Are you going to rank advisers by cost? 

No, there is no change to your VouchedFor search listing or profile page. It is up to you whether you choose to share your comparison publicly.  

Q: Are you encouraging a race to the bottom?

Not at all. Restaurants, hotels, cars, computers ... you name it ... almost every industry has both cheap options, and expensive options. Transparency simply serves to inform customers and help them pick the service that's right for them. And it helps businesses make sure they get the right types of enquiries. Whether your fees are higher or lower, you have just as much to gain from being transparent .... just so long as your service is worth the cost!

Q: Can clients see this? 

Clients will only see what they have seen previously - the fee information you’ve inputted on your profile. They will not see any of the data on your Fee Insights tab or how you compare. The Fee Report is intended to be shareable - but it is up to you whether you choose to share this report with your clients. Fee Insights and the Fee Report will not affect your VouchedFor Profile or the way that consumers search for advisers.

Q: How do I share the Fee Report with clients? 

Simply copy and paste the URL you see in your browser window, and send it to them via whichever channel you prefer (email, social, text etc!) 

Q: How many advisers have added fees on VouchedFor? 

At the moment, we have fee data for around 650 advisers.

Q: Do I have to publish my fees on VouchedFor? 

No, it’s still up to you whether you choose to enter your fee details. 

Q: How is the comparison calculated? 

We calculate the total 5 year cost, which accounts for both initial and ongoing fees. We then calculate the median value for the 5 year cost across 4 different asset levels, which then allows us to determine how an individual advisers’ fees compare to this median. 

For example, for a client with investable assets of £50,000 - 

If you charge a combination of fixed fee + percentage of assets for Financial Planning plus Implementation and Ongoing Service as follows: 

£1500 for financial planning up front + 1.5% initial + 1% ongoing 

Then your total five year cost for a client with £50,000 in assets would be:  £1500 + (1.5% * 50000) + ((1% * 50000)*5) = £4,750

Q: How do you define ‘competitive’ and ‘highly competitive’ and ‘premium’? 

“Competitive” means you are within 15% of the median 5 year cost. “Highly competitive” means you are below this. “Premium” means you are more than 15% above the median. We explain on your Fee Report that for premium advisers, “this may be related to the adviser’s years of experience, qualifications, location or a premium level of service they provide.”

The average cost is based on all fees supplied by other advisers on VouchedFor.

Q: How does this account for different fee models? 

When you enter your fee details, you select a fee model to use. We then compare advisers who have the same fee model. For some of the Fee Insights, you can filter by different fee models to see how other advisers are charging. 

Q: How do I add my fees? 

See our help article here: https://pro-support.vouchedfor.co.uk/article/99-adding-your-fees-to-vouchedfor

Q: My fee model doesn’t fit any of your categories? 

We are aware there are several other fee models that our Insights do not work for yet, including charging based on complexity rather than asset levels, and advisers who offset financial planning fees against initial implementation fees. We are hoping to be able to build insights in the future for these fee models and would welcome your input!