Financial Advisor Questions to Ask Clients
For financial advisors and planners preparing a discovery meeting with a prospective or new client, and the review meetings that follow. The questions run in the order the conversation tends to take: why the client has come now, what they want the money to do, the numbers, risk and past investing, family and legacy, then how you will stay in contact and what to ask at each review, each with a note on what a good or a worrying answer sounds like and what to do with it. What you are required to record, and how tax, pensions and estates work, depends on where you practice, so check those against your firm's and your regulator's rules.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Why now
What made you decide to sit down with an advisor now?
Why ask it
There is nearly always an event behind the booking: an inheritance, a job change, a birthday with a zero in it, a partner's nudge. An event gives you a deadline and a first task. 'I just thought I should' often covers a worry they have not said out loud yet, so ask what they had been reading or talking about the week they called.
What worries you most about money at the moment?
Why ask it
Let the pause run. The first answer tends to be the respectable one, such as retirement, and the second is closer to the truth: a shaky job, a parent's care, a partner's spending. Whatever they name belongs on the first page of what you send afterward, even if your own analysis says the larger risk is somewhere else.
If we were sitting here three years from now, what would have to be true for you to say this was worth it?
Why ask it
Write the answer down in their words, because it is the standard you will be judged by whether or not you agreed to it. A useful answer names something you can check: a retirement date settled, a debt gone, no more arguments about money at home. If it is only a return figure, say in this meeting what you can and cannot control.
Who else is part of the money decisions in your household, and should they be here next time?
Why ask it
A plan agreed with one half of a couple tends to stall at the signature. If a partner, parent or adult child has a say, get them to the second meeting. Notice 'she leaves all that to me', which leaves someone unprepared, and when a relative is doing the talking for an older client, find a way to hear from the client alone.
Have you worked with a financial advisor before, and what did they do for you?
Why ask it
Someone new to this needs the process and your pay explained slowly. From anyone else, the description shows what they think the job is: picking funds, selling a policy, or planning for the whole household. If they still have that advisor, ask what would make them move, and say nothing against a person you have not met.
What did your last advisor do that you would not want repeated?
Why ask it
The answers cluster: silence, holdings they never understood, a fee they learned about late, a feeling of being sold to. Treat it as an instruction, and if you do something similar, such as recommending the same kind of product, say so now and explain why. Be wary when every past advisor is blamed for a market fall, because those expectations need resetting before you take the client on.
How was money handled in the home you grew up in?
Why ask it
'We never talked about it' and 'my father lost the business' often explain a later reaction to debt or risk better than a form does. With a couple, ask each of them, since two different upbringings can sit behind a disagreement about spending. Take what they offer and move on: it is background for the plan, not something for you to interpret.
Is managing money something you enjoy, or something you put up with?
Why ask it
The answer sets how much you put in front of them. Someone who enjoys it wants the workings and will question your assumptions, which is healthy. Someone who avoids it needs one page and a short list of actions, and may not be opening their statements at all, so ask.
Goals
What are the three things you most want your money to do for you?
Why ask it
Asking for three makes them choose, and the order they come out in is a first ranking. Good answers are things you could put a date and a price on. If all three are versions of 'be comfortable', ask what a comfortable month costs.
When do you want to stop working, or change how you work, and what is that date based on?
Why ask it
A date tied to a pension rule, a mortgage ending or a partner's retirement is firm. A round-number age is usually a guess and can move, so ask which they would give up first, the date or the lifestyle. Read the terms of any pension or state benefit yourself, since the ages and rules depend on the country and the plan.
Describe an ordinary week in retirement as you picture it. Where are you, and what are you doing?
Why ask it
This turns a vague goal into a budget: travel, a second home, looking after grandchildren and part-time work all cost different amounts. When a couple describe two different weeks, you have found the most useful thing in the meeting. A blank means they are planning for a number and not a life, so keep the first years of the plan flexible.
How is your health, and how long have people in your family tended to live?
Why ask it
You are after the number of years the plan has to pay for, not a medical history, so take only what they volunteer. People tend to plan to the age a parent died, which can be far too short, so show the plan running a good deal longer as well. In a couple, plan to the one likely to live longest.
What do you expect to pay for in the next five years that is bigger than a normal month?
Why ask it
The total tells you how much needs to be kept safe and within reach, however bold they sound about risk. People leave out the spending they have already promised in their heads, so prompt them: a car, a roof, a wedding, tuition, help with a child's down payment.
Is there a goal you have quietly given up on because you assumed it was out of reach?
Why ask it
It is usually stopping work early, a change of career or paying for a child's school. Promise only to run the numbers: if they allow it, saying so is worth more than any portfolio you build, and if they do not, showing why is kinder than leaving the hope vague.
Do you plan to stay in your current home, and for how long?
Why ask it
The home is often the largest thing they own, and a plan to downsize, move near family or renovate changes the cash flow for years. Do not count the equity toward retirement unless they have said they would sell. If two partners answer differently, note both and come back to it.
Is there anything you want your money to support, or keep away from, on principle?
Why ask it
The reason may be faith, the environment or an industry that hurt someone in the family, and you do not need to know which. Ask how strict it is, because an absolute exclusion and a mild preference are built differently, and be straight about what the choice may cost or rule out. Having no view is a fine answer and does not need filling.
The numbers
Where does your income come from, and how steady is each part of it?
Why ask it
Take each source separately: salary, bonus, commission, rent, a business. How steady each one is can matter more than the total, since a household that lives on bonuses usually wants a deeper cash cushion than one on two salaries of the same size. Ask what the worst of the last five years looked like.
Roughly what comes in and what goes out in a typical month?
Why ask it
Few clients know, and the quality of the guess tells you how much groundwork lies ahead. If they cannot estimate spending, ask for three months of statements before the next meeting instead of building on a guess. A healthy gap on paper with no savings to show for it means the spending figure is too low.
How much could you get your hands on within a week if you had to, and where is it kept?
Why ask it
Convert the answer into months of spending while they are still in the room. If it is thin, building it up is usually the first job, ahead of any investing. A very large cash balance deserves a question as well: it is usually waiting for something, a purchase or a fear, and you need to know which.
Walk me through what you own: accounts, property, a business, anything else.
Why ask it
Work from statements, not memory. The things that go missing are a plan left with a former employer, shares from a company stock plan, a policy with a cash value, an account a parent opened years ago. Note whose name is on each one, because that decides who has to sign and who you may speak to about it.
What do you owe, to whom, and at what interest rate?
Why ask it
The rate usually decides which debt to clear first, so a client who knows the balances but not the rates has homework. Then ask about the debts people leave off: money borrowed from family, a loan they co-signed for someone else, unpaid tax, a card their partner does not know about.
What does your employer give you besides pay: a retirement plan, matching contributions, shares, insurance?
Why ask it
An unclaimed match or an unread stock plan is often the easiest gain you will find all year. The terms differ by employer and country, so ask for the plan document or the benefits summary and read it yourself. Clients describe these from memory, and the memory is usually of the day they were hired.
Is a large part of what you have sitting in one thing: a single stock, your employer's shares, one property?
Why ask it
Concentration is seldom a decision: it builds up through pay or an inheritance, and loyalty or tax keeps it in place. Ask what a halving would do to their plans and to their mood. Selling may be taxed, in ways that differ from place to place, so bring in their tax professional before you recommend anything.
Are you expecting money to arrive or leave in a lump: an inheritance, a property sale, a business sale, a settlement?
Why ask it
Build the plan on what is certain and show the lump as a separate what-if. An expected inheritance is the weakest of these, since the people leaving it may need it for their own care. Where a divorce or a legal dispute is involved, ask what their lawyer has said about timing before any money moves.
Who prepares your tax return, and may I see the most recent one?
Why ask it
A return shows income sources and accounts the client forgot to mention. If an accountant prepares it, ask permission to speak to them, and be clear which of you advises on tax. Reluctance to share it is worth one gentle question, because you cannot plan around numbers you have not seen.
What insurance do you have against death, illness or losing your income, and when was it last looked at?
Why ask it
You are checking that the plan survives a bad year, and that is how to put it. Coverage that comes through a job may not follow them out of it, so ask how theirs works instead of assuming. If you are paid for placing insurance, say so before you comment on a gap.
Is there anything about your finances you have been putting off looking at?
Why ask it
Ask it lightly and wait: the usual answers are an unopened pension statement, a letter from the tax office or a balance that has grown. If the thing is being kept from a partner, say plainly that a plan for two people cannot rest on numbers only one of them knows, and leave them to decide how it gets raised.
Risk
What investing have you done so far, and who made the decisions?
Why ask it
The range runs from nothing, through a workplace plan left in its default fund, to someone who trades every week. A person who has only held a default has never watched themselves react to a loss they chose. A confident trader may expect a say in each holding, and that is better settled before you agree to work together.
What is the best financial decision you have made, and the worst?
Why ask it
The best one shows what they value: patience, a property, clearing a debt. The worst shows what they are afraid of repeating, and if it was a loss, ask what they did the week after, because the client who sold at the low needs a different portfolio from the one who held on. Someone with no bad decision to report is either new to this or not ready to say.
Think back to the last time markets fell sharply. What did you do, and how did you sleep?
Why ask it
What a client did is better evidence than any score on a form. 'I did not look' and 'I sold the lot' are both useful, and both go in the file. If they had nothing invested then, say that the two of you are guessing, and start more cautiously than the form suggests.
If your portfolio fell by a fifth in a year, what would that be in dollars, and what would you want me to do?
Why ask it
Do the sum together on their real balance, and say that it is an illustration, not a forecast. Plenty of people accept the percentage and flinch at the amount, and the flinch is the answer. 'Wait' counts only if it survives the dollar figure, 'call me' is a service instruction to record, and 'get me out' means building the portfolio so that a fall that deep is unlikely.
How soon will you need to draw on this money, and how much of it?
Why ask it
This is capacity for risk, which is separate from nerve. Money needed within a few years has less room for swings than money for a distant retirement, however bold the client sounds. Split the total by date before you talk about a mix, and question a high-risk answer from someone who needs a down payment next spring.
If this money did badly, what in your life would actually change?
Why ask it
'I would work another year' and 'we could not pay the tuition' are two different clients with what may be the same score on your questionnaire. Where the honest answer is real hardship, the risk level is already decided, and your job is to explain why it is lower than they asked for.
What return are you expecting, and where did that number come from?
Why ask it
The source is the interesting half: a friend's story, one good decade, an advertisement. If the figure is well above anything you could reasonably plan on, deal with it today and put it in your follow-up note. Never answer with a number that could be heard as a promise.
Do you already hold something you could not explain to a friend?
Why ask it
Ask who recommended it and what they were told it would do. Finding out what it is, what it costs and what leaving it would involve is often your first useful piece of work for them. Hold back your opinion until you have read the paperwork, because a verdict given from the name alone can be wrong.
Which of you is more cautious about investing, and by how much?
Why ask it
One partner is usually bolder, and a joint portfolio set at that person's level produces a frightened spouse at the first fall. Ask each of them, separately if you can, then settle on a level the more cautious one can live with, or keep separate pots. Skip it for a client deciding alone.
Family
Who relies on you for money now, and who might in the next ten years?
Why ask it
Children come to mind first. The second half of the question is there for the parent whose savings are thin, the sibling who keeps needing help, the adult child who has not quite left. Ask how long each kind of support is expected to last, because five years and a lifetime are different plans.
What do you want to do for your children or grandchildren, and by when?
Why ask it
The help may be education, a down payment, a wedding, or deliberately nothing; ask whether it has been promised, is hoped for, or is simply assumed by the children. The answer to worry about is a client paying for all of it out of their own retirement, so show the plan both ways. Savings accounts for education are taxed differently from country to country, so check what exists where they live.
If one of you died or could not work, what would the other need to know and be able to do?
Why ask it
Listen to the less involved partner's answer and not the confident one's. If they could not find the accounts, name the advisor or get past the passwords, a single page listing where everything is becomes an early task, and it costs the couple an evening.
When did you last look at your will, and at who is named on each account and policy?
Why ask it
You are not drafting anything, only finding out whether a lawyer is needed. A will written before a marriage, a divorce or a child, and an account form that still names a former partner, are the usual discoveries. How a will and those forms interact is a legal question with a different answer in each place, so refer it instead of answering.
Who would you trust to make money decisions for you if you could not?
Why ask it
A name that comes at once usually means the paperwork can follow, and hesitation means they need time, which pressing does not shorten. Ask whether that person knows, and whether you may contact them if you were ever worried about the client. Find out what your firm lets you do with such a contact before you promise anything.
What do you want to leave behind, and what would you rather spend or give away while you are alive?
Why ask it
Some clients want the largest possible inheritance and others want the last check to bounce, and the two need different withdrawal rates and different portfolios. If they have never thought about it, plan first on a modest legacy and revisit, and expect partners to differ, above all in a second marriage with children from the first. Giving to charity belongs here too: ask whether they have a cause or only a sense that they should.
Is there a family situation that makes the money more complicated than it looks on paper?
Why ask it
It belongs late in the meeting, once they have seen how you handle what they tell you. The usual answers are a second marriage, an estranged child, a family business with one child working in it, or a relative with a disability or an addiction. You need only what the plan has to work around, so do not dig for the story.
Contact and reviews
How often do you want to hear from me, in how much detail, and by what means?
Why ask it
Get specifics and put them in the file: a call each quarter, a one-page email, a meeting twice a year. With a couple you will often find one who wants every chart and one who wants the conclusion, so send the summary with the detail attached. If what they ask for is more than your service includes, say so before they sign.
When markets fall hard, do you want me to call, or would you rather not hear about it?
Why ask it
Agree it in a calm month. The ones who want a call should get it within days, before they have read the headlines three times. For those who say leave me be, record it and still send two lines, because a long silence during a fall is how many stories about a former advisor begin.
Which decisions would you want to talk through with me before you make them?
Why ask it
The answer shows how they see your job: the investments only, or also a job offer, a house, a loan to a relative. Offer your own list, which might include any large withdrawal, a change of employer, and anything a salesperson is hurrying them toward. A narrow answer is their right, and it means the plan will go out of date faster between meetings.
Is there someone you want me to keep informed, or someone I should never discuss your affairs with?
Why ask it
On one side it may be an accountant, a lawyer or an adult child, on the other a former partner or a relative who asks a lot of questions. Get each permission in the form your firm requires. Check the privacy rules where you practice before sharing anything, even with a spouse whose name is not on the account.
What would you like to ask me, about how I work or how I am paid?
Why ask it
Leave real time for it, because a client who asks nothing has often not understood enough to know what to ask. If pay does not come up, raise it yourself, and put it in writing in whatever form your firm and regulator require. What they do ask shows which parts of the meeting left them unsure.
What has changed in your life since we last met?
Why ask it
Open every review with this, before a single performance figure. A new job, a diagnosis, a grandchild or a house move shifts the plan further than the market did. 'Nothing much' is often wrong, so run through work, health, family and home out loud.
What is coming in the next twelve months that the plan should be ready for?
Why ask it
The question before this one looks back, and this one looks ahead. A retirement date that has moved, a job they are thinking of leaving or a large withdrawal needs cash set aside before it happens, not after. Put whatever they name at the top of the next review, so that you ask how it went.
Are the goals we wrote down still the right ones, and in the same order?
Why ask it
Read them back from the file, because clients forget what they told you and hearing it aloud is what brings out 'well, actually'. A change in the order may mean a change in the portfolio. If nothing has moved in years, ask what they would add if they were starting today.
How did you feel when you opened your last statement?
Why ask it
It is a risk check taken at the moment it counts. Calm after a poor year confirms the level you set, while dread, or a statement left unopened, suggests the risk is too high whatever the form on file says. Delight after a strong year is the time to remind them what the same portfolio does in a bad one.
Is there anything in your reports, or in what I have recommended, that you did not fully follow?
Why ask it
People nod in meetings, so pick one holding and ask them to say in their own words what it is there for. If they cannot, the gap is in your explanation, and it is cheap to fix today. Left alone, it is the client who sells in a fall or tells a regulator they were never told.
What have you wished I had done this year that I did not?
Why ask it
Ask it, then stop talking. The small things, a slow reply or a report they could not read, cost little to put right now and a client if they pile up. If the answer is 'all fine' every year, narrow it: was there a week when they expected to hear from you and did not?
Is there anything you have been meaning to tell me that has not come up yet?
Why ask it
The real subject often arrives in the last five minutes: a separation, a health scare, a plan to lend a child a large sum. Leave room on the clock for it and stay seated when you ask. If something big comes out, book a second conversation instead of squeezing it in.
How to run a client discovery meeting
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the meeting
Ask for the paperwork ahead of time
Send a short list a week before: recent statements for every account, the latest tax return, a pay stub, loan balances with their rates, any insurance schedules and a copy of the will if there is one. Whatever arrives saves you from spending the meeting on arithmetic. Whatever does not arrive tells you something too, and gives you a first question.
Know what your firm and regulator require
The questions on this page are for understanding the client. They do not replace the fact-find, suitability or know-your-client record your firm and your regulator expect, and those requirements differ from one country, license and firm to the next. Have the required form with you and make sure the conversation fills it, but do not let the form set the order.
Choose for the client in front of you
Nobody should be asked the whole list in one sitting. For a first meeting, take most of Why now and Goals, the opening few from The numbers, and two or three from Risk and Family. A retiree needs the spending and legacy questions early, a thirty-year-old the ones about debt, workplace benefits and the next five years. Contact and reviews splits in two: its first five questions belong at the end of discovery, and the rest are for reviews.
Get the right people in the room
If the money is shared, the meeting should be too. Ask when you book who else has a say, and offer a time both can make. Where one partner cannot come to the first meeting, hold the questions about risk, retirement and legacy for the second.
In the meeting
Begin with their reason, not your form
Open with Why now and let the client talk for a good while before any number is requested. People answer questions about balances and debts more fully once they have been listened to on something that matters to them, and the reason they came is what every later recommendation has to connect back to.
Say why you are asking
Questions about debt, a past mistake or a family difficulty can feel like prying. One sentence of reason helps: 'I ask everyone about family complications, because a plan that ignores them tends to come apart later.' It also makes clear that the question is routine and not a reaction to something they said.
Ask each partner, by name
In many couples one person answers for both. On goals, risk and what retirement looks like, put the question to each of them in turn, and to the quieter one first. Two different answers are not a problem to smooth over in the room. Write both down and build the plan so that it works for both.
Wait after the hard ones
The questions about worry, about what has been put off and about anything not yet mentioned work only if you leave a silence after them. Count to five before you speak. If you fill the gap with an example, the client will agree with your example and keep their own answer.
Take notes in their words
'Never be a burden to the kids' is more use to you later than 'long-term care concern'. Their phrases belong in the summary you send and in the opening of each review, and they show the client that the plan was written for them. Tell them you are taking notes and why.
After the meeting
Send a summary within a few days
One page: why they came, their goals in the order they gave them, what worries them, what you still need from them, and what happens next. Ask them to correct anything you got wrong. The corrections are valuable, and a client who has confirmed the summary has agreed the brief you will be working to.
List what you have not seen
Keep what the client told you separate from what you have verified on a statement. An account described from memory, an inheritance that is expected, a pension whose terms nobody has read: mark each as unconfirmed and do not build a recommendation on it until the document arrives.
Refer what is not yours to answer
Discovery turns up questions about wills, tax, benefits and property ownership. How those work depends on the country, the state or province, the employer and the provider, and often on a professional license you may not hold. Note the question, name the kind of professional who should answer it, and offer to work alongside them.
Decide whether you are the right advisor
The answers sometimes show a poor fit: expectations you cannot meet, a level of contact your practice does not offer, a need outside what you do. Saying so after the first meeting, with a suggestion of where to look, is better for both sides than finding out in the second year.
Turn the answers into the review agenda
Each review should start from what was said at discovery: the goals as written, the worry they named, the fall they said they could tolerate. Reading those back takes five minutes and is the quickest way to learn what has changed. Then use the later questions under Contact and reviews.
Mistakes to avoid
Recommending before you have finished asking
A client mentions cash sitting in the bank and the urge is to say what you would do with it. Hold it. A recommendation made halfway through discovery is made on half the facts, and it turns the remaining questions into a sales conversation in the client's eyes.
Letting the questionnaire stand in for the conversation
A risk score records what someone ticked on a calm day. Set it beside what they did in the last fall, how soon they need the money and what a loss would change in their life. Where the form and the conversation disagree, talk it through with the client and record how you resolved it.
Leading the answer
'You are comfortable with some ups and downs, right?' gets a yes from nearly everyone. Ask it open, and ask for an amount in dollars or a past event. The same goes for goals: suggesting a retirement age puts your number in their head.
Promising in order to win the client
Discovery is also when the client is deciding about you, and it is tempting to agree with a return expectation or a level of attention you cannot sustain. Whatever you let pass in this meeting becomes the expectation you are measured against later.
Asking once and never again
Circumstances, nerves and families change. A file that still describes the client as they were at the first meeting leads to advice for someone who no longer exists. Put the review questions on the agenda every time, even when the client says nothing is new.