Recent Investment Trends research on the SMSF sector has identified the specific issues on which advisers need to focus in order to provide the greatest value for their clients who are trustees of their own fund.
To this end, the analysis revealed SMSF trustees nominated pension strategies, and inheritance and estate planning as two areas they would like to be receiving financial advice about but are currently not having that need met.
“This is really interesting because there is a massive conversation going on about retirement incomes,” Investment Trends head of research Dr Irene Guiamatsia said during a presentation at the Class Ignite 2023 event in Sydney last month.
“What I want to call out is that when we look at the pool of SMSFs, as in the population, we have a third of these in pension phase. But when we look at where the money is, it is actually about half and that proportion may be increasing.
“So it’s really, really important [for advisers] to focus on pension strategies as an area where [they] can really effectively help clients.”
Apart from these issues, trustees also wanted more assistance with changes in regulation, tax planning and contribution strategies.
Overall, the study showed the number of trustees who said they have unmet advice needs was 370,000 for 2023 compared to 330,000 respondents who acknowledged this was the case in 2022.
Of this cohort of 370,000, Guiamatsia recognised around 100,000 are receiving financial advice and a deeper examination of the data revealed these individuals are in a better position.
“The rate of change [as to unmet advice needs] for those who are unadvised is increasing at a significantly faster rate. So this is certainly alarming indeed,” she said.
