How you pay for investment advice can have an effect on your peace of mind and the outcome of your financial life. Because there is no such thing as a “free lunch”, you should clearly understand how you are paying for financial services or financial advice.
Amicus does not sell any investment products. We do not sell mutual funds, stocks, variable annuities, or other investment “products”. When investment management services are desired, clients give us limited discretionary trading authority. We place trades for the client and are compensated by a percentage of assets under management, not by the number or size of trades. We work with our clients in the role of advisor, counselor and friend. We are a Fee-Based financial planning firm. Meaning that we do not accept commissions from investment products, but sometimes we do receive commissions from life insurance and fixed annuity products. When we do, we fully disclose the commission that we receive.
All of our investment advice and asset management services are performed on a fee-only basis. Insurance products such as level term insurance or fixed annuities may have associated commissions. With regard to insurance products, we act as independent agents. In other words, we are not handcuffed to any given company and have access to several insurance products across many different companies.
This blend of fees and commissions results in Amicus advisors being able to maintain objectivity and serve more of the client’s financial needs than if we took a strictly fee-only or commission-only approach. Fee-based financial planners are less likely to be biased by sales commissions. They do not rely on selling products or generating trades to earn their living. Instead, they are paid by you for the effort they expend.
