A senior SMSF actuary has warned against having the sector and regulators interpret the growing number of individuals setting up a fund without engaging financial advice as a sign trustees are receiving no professional assistance.
“[One risk] the regulator might worry about [with regard to this trend] is that people will get into an SMSF, break the law and they’ll do all of the wrong things. That assumes [they will receive] no help from an accountant,” Heffron managing director Meg Heffron told delegates at the Class Thought Leadership Breakfast at the SMSF Association National Conference 2026 recently held in Adelaide.
“I don’t know [the exact] proportion of funds that have a tax agent, but it’s huge. So that’s where the professional work is with clients.”
However, Heffron did recognise having people establish an SMSF without receiving specialist financial advice does present a risk, but suggested it is not an issue that is isolated to just this sector.
“I actually do think [not receiving financial advice] is a risk for people generally whether they’ve got an SMSF or not,” she said.
“I would love to think we could restructure and reset our advice framework so that it is possible for far more people to get affordable advice on their retirement savings. I think that would be so good.”
She acknowledged information available to Australians on the internet alleviated this risk to a certain extent as it provides a source for self-education.
“That’s a poor substitute, but it’s a substitute,” she noted.
On a macro level, she indicated the SMSF sector should actually be seen as one that is reducing risk in the country’s retirement savings framework.
“SMSFs in a way reduce systemic risk. [For example], if you have a failure at AustralianSuper, [it will be] damaging [approximately] 1 million members,” she explained.
“If you have a failure in the SMSF world, it’s not going to affect all 600,000 super funds. [It means SMSFs] are the ultimate [model of] diversification.”
