Dan at Desk

The Bias Issue: The Secrets of Successful Financial Planning

Advisor/Broker bias can be intentional, inadvertent, subconscious; even due to ignorance or employer indoctrination.  Fee-only advisors focus just on investing and may miss budget, estate and insurance issues.  With commissioned products, the potential bias is obvious.  Yet the broker/advisor must still face him/herself each morning!  In other words an advisor or broker is a human being with a conscience, highly likely to be honorable in his/her recommendations.  Let’s explore unconscious bias, and employer-focused inadvertent bias.  What are your thoughts or questions?

 

Published by

Dan Gallagher

Overview: Dan retired from financial services in December 2017 to work professionally as a writer, freelancer, speaker and educator. This is curtailed due to spine problems. During his practice, Dan’s professional designations included: Chartered Financial Consultant & Chartered Life Underwriter (1989), Certified Financial Planner® (1992) and Certified Business Intermediary (2002). Dan’s thirty-year financial practice encompassed group and individual benefits, money management, financial plans, business valuation & brokerage, commercial realty and – often very personal – counseling. He now relies on agent Bill Pettit to offer his works, especially fiction. Chronology: Dan graduated from Virginia Military Institute (1981), third among Economics majors, simultaneously completing the Modern Languages curriculum. He served in the Infantry, then as a reservist in a Special Forces support role, next as a Training Company Commander and later in a classified Army Research Institute role. Dan completed his Master of Business Administration at William & Mary (1986). He and wife Laura married in 1988, loved raising their four children, and assisted both Boy and Girl Scouting through their church through 2010. Dan has given numerous seminars at major employers and other entities including Delta Environmental Consultants (now Antea Group), Anheuser-Busch, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Canon USA and small businesses. Charlotte Magazine selected Dan as a ‘2009 Five-star Wealth Manager.’ Dan was a panelist and guest speaker at the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce’s 2007 ‘Business Disposition Workshop.’ Dan is the author of a novel, a licensing manual, and numerous articles in journals such as Virginia Lawyers Weekly, Financial & Estate Planning, The Daily Press and The Virginia Gazette. Articles by and about Dan have also been published in the Charlotte Business Journal and Charlotte Ventures. His fiction and narrative nonfiction have been published by Skyhorse Publishing, Superversive Press, Millhaven Press, Creative Loafing, NFAA Archery (a humor short story), and Tuscany Bay Press.