--- title: Why Your Financial Adviser Should Be a Fiduciary | TIME description: Harold Pollack explains what the new rule means for retirees looking to invest. canonical: https://time.com/video/j6zKcDMW/ og:title: Why Your Financial Adviser Should Be a Fiduciary og:description: Harold Pollack explains what the new rule means for retirees looking to invest. og:url: https://time.com/video/j6zKcDMW/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/j6zKcDMW/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Your Financial Adviser Should Be a Fiduciary twitter:description: Harold Pollack explains what the new rule means for retirees looking to invest. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/j6zKcDMW/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Why Your Financial Adviser Should Be a Fiduciary > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Why Your Financial Adviser Should Be a Fiduciary [Watch (HLS stream): Why Your Financial Adviser Should Be a Fiduciary](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/j6zKcDMW.m3u8) (3:10)  _Published 2016-03-18. Harold Pollack explains what the new rule means for retirees looking to invest._ --- Jul 27, 2023 7:47 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Financial Advice From Harold Pollack](/video/F2fDY9SE/) ### Financial Advice From Harold Pollack [When Do You Need A Financial Adviser?](/video/fYlB54ci/) ### When Do You Need A Financial Adviser? [What the New Fiduciary Standard Means for Retirees](/video/ys4J34rj/) ### What the New Fiduciary Standard Means for Retirees --- ## Transcript I'm here with Harold Pollack, who's coauthor of The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to be Complicated. Now you talk about the importance of having a financial advisor who follows the fiduciary standard. Explain to me what that is. So the fiduciary standard is the requirement That they put your financial interest first. Don't all financial advisers have to put your interests first? No, they're typically operating under something called a suitability standard, which means that they have to offer you investments that are suitable for you but may not actually be the best for you. So for example, It may be that the index fund is really suitable for you and they know about two index funds. And one has a fee of 0. 1 percent per year, and one has a fee of 0. 8 percent per year, and they make more money if you buy the more expensive one. They are entitled to offer you the more expensive one, and not even to let you know that the cheaper one exists. So it's. Perfectly legal for them to steer you to a more expensive fund that makes them more money. Yes it is. And there are efforts under way to tighten up the regulations there, but it's certainly something that right now you have to be a little cautious about. And if you're not operating under the fiduciary standards, you're really in a sales relationship with someone, and there's nothing Necessarily wrong with that, but it's a little bit like going into Best Buy and asking a sales person do I need a TV. You're just not gonna get unbiased advice. You wanna ask your financial professional, will you deal with me on a fiduciary basis in all of your dealings with me? And just have a very direct, cordial, but direct conversation Is there an easy way to find out if someone is a fiduciary all the time ? >> Yeah, you just have one conversation. There are many fee only fiduciary advisors for whom that is a big part of their sales pitch. Is that this is the way I operate with investors. If your talking with someone and they make you feel uncomfortable about this conversation, that's generally a red flag. Are you saying that anybody who doesn't commit to a fiduciary standard is gonna rip you off? Not in the sense like you're gonna run into Bernie Madoff, or something like that. But I think that there are times when you don't need the fiduciary standard, if you have a transaction that you just want someone to do for you. But I personally think that it's I just feel so much more comfortable when I'm dealing with that protection. So that I know that the advice that I'm getting is truly advice that is in my best interest. There's one catch to this which is that if you're the only person paying your advisory and they're fiduciary standard you actually have to pay straight up for stuff. A lot of people think hey my financial professional that I'm dealing with is free And if it's free, you are the product. So you may have to pay 250 or $ 300, $ 400 for an hour of someone's time while they're advising you about some of your financial dealings. And if you get used to this pay being very indirect and you don't really sort of see the full amount, you can feel a little bit of sticker shock [ MUSIC ] Its better that way Good. 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