The enduring business model in the world of financial advice has been that of firms, both large and small, facilitating the services of self-employed advisers who find and then look after their clients. This goes back to the origin story of many of us, the Abbey Lifes, Prudentials and Allied Dunbars (kids etc.) who recruited, trained (for a couple of weeks) and unleashed those of all backgrounds to sell their pensions, life insurance and investments. Many of us are still in the business, and many clients have pensions and life insurance they would not otherwise have thanks, I’d contend, to us. However, things have changed, more so in the last few years than the previous 30 or more. There are far fewer advisers than clients needing advisers, and the emphasis, again for firms of all sizes, is on the looking after and selection rather than seeking of clients. So, yes, I’d agree that employed and qualified advisers doing a good job without sales pressure will become the norm; and not just because the tax man might say so.
“Why people over the age of 55 are the new problem generation”
I suspect that many a ‘boomer’ might be pleased with the ‘problem generation’ label. When they were teen- or twenty-somethings, their parents’ generation may well have either despaired of them or worried about the world into which they were emerging as adults; it will ever be thus.