Clients seek out the advice of professional financial advisers for good reason: advisers have in-depth knowledge, years of experience and financial qualifications.  

And good professional advisers give good advice. They have listened to their clients, thought long and hard and have tailored their advice to the needs of their client.

The expectation is that the client acts on the adviser’s recommendations and achieves their financial goals.

But it does not always work out that way.

On some occasions, the client might decide that they want to do things differently and are going to take a different path from the one mapped out by the adviser.

In other words, they are not going to accept the adviser’s recommendation. Instead, they ask them to take the course of action they have chosen, against the adviser’s advice.

In these circumstances, the client is, according to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) definition, an “insistent client”. 

In this guide, read about what is behind the rise of insistent clients and what the Financial Conduct Authority says about this type of client.

It also covers the potential risks insistent clients pose in relation to defined benefit transfers and how advisers can protect their business from insistent clients.

The guide is worth an indicative 60 minutes of CPD.

Contributors to this guide are: Zoe Dagless, a chartered financial planner at Addidi Wealth; Jeannie Boyle, executive director and chartered planner at EQ Investors; Keith Richards, chief executive of the Personal Finance Society; Frank Morton, a director at Phil Anderson Financial Services; David Hearne, director and wealth management adviser at Satis Asset Management; Nick McBreen, a financial adviser at Worldwide Financial Planning; Scott Gallacher, director and chartered financial planner at Rowley Turton; Paula Steele, managing partner at John Lamb Financial Planning; Rhiannon Bates, managing director of The Risk Factor; Paul Allan, a financial adviser at Wren Sterling; William Hunter, founder of Hunter Wealth Management; Carl Lamb, managing director of Almary Green; Robert Morris, a partner at RPC; Megan Butler, executive director of supervision, wholesale and specialists at the FCA; Financial Conduct Authority.

Fiona Nicolson is a freelance journalist