We have recently had reports from some of our clients that they are constantly being approached telephonically by various Financial Service Providers to either sell them financial prod-ucts or for someone to come and “analyse their current financial situation”. Unfortunately most of these calls come from the larger service providers and their agents are using the opportunity to merely switch your portfolio to their company’s products, under the guise of cheaper bene-fits, without really giving any real financial advice. You might say that getting your current bene-fits cheaper is a good thing, especially during these tough economic times, but please be careful, as cheap is not always good. All service providers use similar risk rating structures and data, so if you are getting a cheaper benefit, you are losing out somewhere else. One of the favourite ways to make your premiums cheaper is to change the premium pattern, which allows for cheaper premiums upfront, but generally this leads to unacceptable premium increases in the future, just to keep your benefits the same. All of the service providers offer these different premium pat-terns and so the argument to switch service provider to get these “lower” premiums is not al-ways valid. Another reason often given to switch service providers is that their benefits are “better”. This could be the case, but how do you as the client tell the difference, other than be-lieving whatever the agent is telling you, which is often biased towards the service provider the represent? So what do you do?
As a Core Wealth Managers’ client you can rest assured that we are doing our homework with regards to the products we offer from the various service provid-ers, taking special care to weigh up the balance between the product benefits and the premiums charged, ensuring you are getting the most appropriate products for your specific needs. We can do this because, as our value jingle goes, “Qualified, Independent & Personal”, we have the ap-propriate Qualifications, each in our line of speciality. We are truly independent when choosing which service providers’ product to use. Lastly, as we hope you have already experienced, we provide a personal level of service, taking into account your personal needs when giving advice. So, if you are approached telephonically or otherwise, please just ask them to contact us and we will ensure your best interests are taken into account.

An example of why you can trust us recently came to light. In 2009 we were approached by a Property Development Company, Realcor, to invest our clients’ funds into their product. On the face of it the properties had some merits, however on further investigation we discovered vari-ous inconsistencies, one being that the commissions that would have been due to Core Wealth Managers were far in excess of what was reasonable. On querying this we were told not to worry as the commissions were built into the product and that clients would not see them. These types of inconsistencies helped us make the decision to stay well away from this invest-ment. This week, News 24 ran an article explaining how 3348 people will in all probability lose the R650 million they invested into this very “Investment Opportunity”, as a result of the liquida-tion of Realcor. Many of these people are retirees, and many were introduced by “brokers” who possibly could not resist the “great” commissions they were paid. We would just like to re-affirm that we will always place your benefits and investments with service providers that are well es-tablished and that we have done our due diligence on.

Best Wishes
Steve Cole
Tel 021 9759032