Investors have major trust issues with their advisors.
In fact, less than 20% of Americans fully trust their advisors, a five point drop since 2010, according to retirement and savings trends research firm Hearts & Wallets.
The majority of investors, 55%, say they are afraid of being ripped off by their advisors. “Investors want a better relationship with their investment providers,” stated Laura Varas, Hearts & Wallets principal, said.
“Higher trust also benefits investors as investors in trusting relationships tend to save more and are more open to new products that could help them. We hope investment providers and investors use our research findings as a roadmap to build more trusting relationships.”
The research also found that full-service brokerage and insurance firms slightly outperformed self-service brokerage firms in terms of customer base percentage who highly trust them. Certain firms do significantly outperform other firms. Edward Jones and Ameriprise lead in full-service brokerage with 46% to 48% of their customers rating them highly trusted. USAA leads in self-service firms at 58%.
