The heart of my service as your financial advisor is a combination of first asking you the right questions to help you identify your needs, and then carefully listening to your answers. This process is combined with the use of qualitative and quantitative software tools developed by the country's leading financial consulting companies to develop your plan and asset mix.

I think that most clients would say that I endeavor to understand their needs, and that I do a thorough job of preparing and explaining my recommendations. I am confident most clients would also say that they are impressed with the quality of my staff and the promptness, professionalism and courtesy they experience in our follow-up.

I can assist individuals who require fee-for-service planning. However, the primary source of my compensation are fees paid to me when I assist clients in implementing their plans. There are several local accountants and lawyers that I also routinely refer clients to for advice on specific issues.

My expertise is in assisting individuals and families in planning and implementing their retirement saving and life and health insurance solutions. I also assist partnerships and corporations in designing benefit plans to deliver retirement saving and life and health insurance solutions for their employees.

Yes, I will integrate my advice with the planning work done by our clients' existing lawyers and accountants, or recommend other professionals as required.

The vast majority of my work with investment portfolios relates to retirement savings. This being the case, I have developed my investment philosophy to mirror the approach taken in managing retirement savings by the large pension plans like the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. This means a balanced approach combining fixed income and equity investments. The use of professional money managers, especially for the equity investments, ensures well diversified portfolios. I do not believe in frequent trading of individual securities. I also believe that keeping a tight control on investment management fees is important to ensure a satisfactory long-term return.

Normally, your investment recommendations will include a summary of your current asset allocation, a review of your investing time horizon, your goals, the risk tolerance that we have established together, and restrictions or constraints that you have asked for in terms of investment options, and your recommended asset allocation. Your investment recommendations will also normally include a detailed set of next steps which explain to you precisely how we would implement our recommended approach.

My staff and I make regular calls to clients generally regarding administrative issues or an improvement that we have scheduled to make. If we have not spoken for a while, the telephone call might be just to say hello and ask you if you have any questions. We also send our regular client communications via mail and email.

All calls to my office received before 4:30 p.m. are returned the same day. If I am away or in meetings, this call might come from my Service Associate who works with me full-time to assist clients.

Account updates are sent out quarterly to our clients. We send a set of portfolio updates directly from our office to all clients. This set of portfolio updates gets reviewed by me personally before it is sent out, and allows me to present you with a statement for all of your accounts in one place. This is especially appreciated by clients with multiple accounts such as RRSPs, Cash Accounts, RESPs, and Joint Accounts. Depending on the type of accounts and investment products used, accounts updates will also be sent to you directly by the investment company either quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.

Yes, for clients who wish to view their accounts on-line, we can choose investment accounts that allow this. We use a variety of investment accounts with our clients depending on their unique needs - not all of these accounts currently have online access.

Absolutely! I carry the most comprehensive liability insurance available to a financial advisor in Ontario. Often called Errors and Omissions Insurance, this insurance protects you were I ever to make an error in my advice. Throughout my career, and throughout some very difficult bear markets, I have never had a claim against my liability insurance. This reflects the careful planning work we do prior to recommendations and the conservative nature of our approach.