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Q: What are the benefits and/or drawbacks to using more than one financial adviser at the same time? —Donna, via email
A: Investing 101 suggests that you should diversify your investments. I can see an argument for diversifying your advisers as well and in practice, Donna, it happens regularly.
Some people do it by accident because they contribute to an RRSP at their bank branch, they have investments with their insurance agent and they have a group retirement plan. If you end up with multiple accounts and more than one financial adviser as a result of happenstance, rather than on purpose, I’d be inclined to consider what you really want.
Some of the drawbacks of using multiple advisers are:
1. Higher fees: You may qualify for fee discounts on higher investment balances. If you have investments with multiple advisers, you might not be paying the lowest fees possible due to multiple small balances.
2. Poor asset allocation: If you or your advisers are not monitoring your overall asset allocation across all of your accounts, you might end up with duplication or over or underweighting that is unintentional…