I’ve never had need for financial advice before and am not quite sure what kind of advice we need, where to find it, or what to expect to pay. Briefly (keeping things vague) we are likely to receive a fairly large lump sum soon and are trying to work out how to manage it. The reasons behind it are unexpected, and tragic, and the sum is primarily to meet the costs that come from that. Exactly how much we’ll need for those costs, and for how long, is uncertain but it’s likely that it will only be for a fairly short time and that there will be quite a large portion left over. We’d want to use the rest to give the family (including children who are currently school age) as much financial security as possible. I’m trying to work out what kind of financial advice we need to manage these different priorities and the fact that the situation is still quite uncertain. A couple of firms I looked went straight to percentage-based fees to manage the money, but I think that perhaps first we need some kind of evaluation of what we want to achieve with it and whether we’d need help in managing it. I’m happy to manage some things ourselves, but don’t have any experience with a lump sum of this kind.
My questions are:
What kind of advice/advisor/planner would be best suited to this kind of situation and what fees would be normal/reasonable?
How do you find a good financial advisor and what criteria do you use to assess them? It seems a huge decision, with so many options and I have no idea who to rely on. No-one I know seems to have a financial advisor so I haven’t been able to get personal recommendations.
Thank you