If in doubt, contact the organisation.Most mortgage brokers are registered IFAs because the products sold alongside home loans (endowments, pensions, PEPs) are covered by the FSA.Likewise, while general insurance falls outside the FSA, brokers often give independent advice on life, pensions and investment business. Most can still provide independent advice through subsidiaries, but you will not receive such advice unless you ask.A tied adviser may be totally trustworthy, but his advice is only as good as the quality of the products he can sell.Generally, it is better to go to independent financial advisers (IFAs) whenever possible. Alternatively, they may be members of a company’s direct salesforce.With the exceptions of the Co-operative Bank and Bradford & Bingley Building Society, most banks and building societies are either “tied” or refuse to sell products covered by the FSA. They can look at all the products available and ensure you get the best deal on performance, protection and cost.Most insurance and investment-related advisers, whether tied or independent, are regulated by the Personal Investment Authority. Tied advisers may only give advice on and sell the products of one company, usually a life insurance and pensions company.

They may run their own firm, in which case they are known as appointed representatives. Those that are include: pensions; unit trusts; personal equity plans (PEPs); investment trust savings schemes; guaranteed investment bonds (GIBs); life insurance products that include an element of investment; offshore savings funds; broker funds; and advice on share dealings, business expansion plans, enterprise investment schemes and venture capital trusts. But like any industry, there are still bad apples mixed in with the good, so it helps to know what to expect from an adviser.Advisers who sell FSA-regulated products fall into two main categories – tied and independent. The common link is that these are all investments.Not included are life insurance that has no investment element (called term assurance); mortgages; bank and building society deposits; general insurance (such as house, contents and car policies); and most health insurance.Since the FSA’s implementation, many inadequately experienced or rogue advisers have been weeded out, and standards as a whole are higher. When the Financial Services Act (FSA) was implemented in 1988, everyone hoped it would be simpler and safer for people to take financial advice.
Products covered by the FSA are subject to strict rules on the way they are advertised and sold, and customers may be able to claim compensation if they are the victim of mis-selling, or their money is stolen by the adviser.But not all financial products – nor all financial advisers – are covered. But finding one that suits your needs, and in which you can place your trust, takes time and effort.

The UK boasts a huge number of individuals and organisations that might be described as financial advisers, ranging from sellers of basic insurance policies to accountants to investment portfolio managers. They all must be made to feel they can make a difference.However, the MCA research suggests that this may yet be some way off. Only a minority of the respondents describe employee communication as interactive or two-way. Most senior managers still view it as a way of transmitting information from the top and providing staff with the information they need to perform their job properly rather than as a tool to involve staff in the aims of the organisation..

Increasingly, they are trained in behaviour skills rather than being “just external public relations managers becoming internal PRs”.Moreover, the use of Mr Smythe’s consultancy in central London in six recent mergers – including Glaxo-Wellcome and Lloyds-TSB – suggests that executives see an important part to be played by communication in key developments for their organisations.Mr Smythe, who agrees with the organisations that believe involving line managers is vital, also sees another emerging idea: the move from concentrating on groups to looking at the individual in organisations. This is because individual members of staff have the power, through their attitudes, to make initiatives successful or not – even though it is essential to share information with groups.Moreover, if organisations are to benefit properly from real communication by having information, and views, passed up as well as down the line, each individual must be involved. More than two-thirds of them, it says, are making line managers’ communication skills a high priority.John Smythe, chairman of Smythe Dorward Lambert, who will be addressing the conference along with leading academics and other business people, sees encouraging signs in the type of people employed by organisations to carry out the communications role. According to what is claimed to be the most comprehensive qualitative survey of attitudes on internal marketing and communication undertaken in private- and public-sector organisations, British business leaders have an over-reliance on “outmoded `top-down’ employee communication techniques”.
That is why, to put it simply, there are plenty of organisations spending small fortunes on employee newsletters, which push positive messages about how well the organisation is doing in the lean and mean business environment, but little internal marketing or collecting and disseminating of information that is not directly related to the management’s preoccupations.Kevin Thomson, the chairman of the Marketing and Communication Agency (MCA), which commissioned the research by Salford University’s BNFL Corporate Communication Unit, said: “For the last two decades, British business has been stuck in a time warp, struggling to make do with an outdated approach called employee communication that many managers see as a way of transmitting information rather than a means of getting their people’s commitment.”Vital corporate change initiatives, such as business process re-engineering, are not achieving success because British business leaders are failing to achieve the necessary employee `buy-in’ to change proposals.”The findings, published last month, come weeks before a conference on the subject organised by the Centre for Communication Development – the management education arm of Smythe Dorward Lambert, a firm of communication consultants.The event, to be held at the Ashdown Park Hotel, East Sussex, on 25 and 26 June, comes with its own research suggesting that many businesses are at least aware of the problem revealed by the MCA.