To hear or not to hear....Have you heard from your financial advisor?

With the credit crisis looming large on people's mind, economists and pundits, alike, are on the verge of screaming recession, if they haven't done so already. While a recession hasn't been officially declared yet, it's long time to wonder how prepared you are for the riskiness ahead....Has your financial advisor called to give you insight to the current state of the financial markets? Assuming you feel you should have heard from your advisor by now, there are several possible reasons you have not.

Of course, not that your financial advisor's attention right now is mandatory. You might be a hands-off investor and not wishing to hear from him or her at this moment. But, for a good many, insight and feedback during these turbulent times is a reason they hired an investment advisor in the first place. The education they can pick off by listening to clear and eloquent explanations will only help them in the future.

If your fiinancial advisor hasn't been quick to touch base, there can be several reasons for this. One, as mentioned, is the fact that the client specifically doesn't want to be bothered. The market goes up. The market goes down. This is pretty much the extent of the picture they want to get. They have enough stress in their daily lives to have to worry about how their portfolio is evolving.

Another reason for not hearing from your financial advisor is that you just are not a top client. It is taught frequently in training programs that a broker should pay 80% of his attention with the top 20% of his book (known to many as the 80-20 rule). Assuming this rule, it appears 80% of retail clients aren't prioritized...that is, if they are successful and doing their job right. Are you the top 20% of your broker's book? Are you a valued client?

A final obvious reason for not hearing from your broker is just a lack of proactiveness. A good many advisors spend a significant amount of time recruiting new clients to their practice. The more clients they have, the more money they make. While being a proactive advisor, will establish goodwill in your relationship, there isn't necessarily a clear cut return on his time. Whereas with recruiting new clients, it will mean added commissions to his practice. Seeing how important recruiting new clients is important to one broker over another.

What a financial advisor should do is try to ascertain how much attention you need as the client. Whether you want to meet quarterly, biannually or annually should be determined well in advance and will bring a greater deal of transparency into the relationship.

Lesson: A section called "Frequency of Contact" should be included in your Investment Policy Statement or Financial Plan. It will do a great deal for your relationship with him or her. The section should answer the following questions:

a) How often are the face-to-face reviews of your portfolio?

b) Will you have phone appointments ever so often? Or will you have to solicit them whenever you may have an inquiry?

c) When you call to make an inquiry, how long do you have to wait until you call is returned? Will your call be returned by your advisor for all your inquiries? What circumstances will your call be delegated to the support staff?