How to Get a Second Opinion on Your Financial Adviser
You have a meeting with your IFA in three weeks. You want a second opinion before you sign. Here is how to get one in 30 minutes without paying a second adviser or offending the first one.
You have been with the same adviser for years. They were recommended by a colleague, or by your bank, or by a relative who used to work in financial services. The annual review meeting comes round every spring. You sit in the same office, you sign the same form, you leave with the same vague feeling that you should probably understand more about what you are paying for.
The fee lands every quarter. You do not always read the breakdown. The portfolio is somewhere on a screen. The pension is somewhere else. You are not unhappy. You are not sure you are getting what you are paying for.
That uncertainty is the reason you are reading this. You want a second opinion. You do not want to leave. You do not want a sales meeting with a new adviser. You want to know, in plain English, whether the plan you are paying for is the plan you need.
Here is how to do that cleanly.
The single number that changes the question
On a £300,000 portfolio, a 1% annual adviser fee is £3,000 a year. Over 20 years, with average investment growth, that single percentage point can cost £120,000 to £180,000 in lost compounding. The point of a second opinion is not to find a cheaper adviser. It is to find out whether the one you already have is doing enough work to justify that number.
What a Second Opinion Actually Is
A second opinion is not switching. You are not leaving your adviser. You are not getting a different portfolio built from scratch. You are doing one specific thing: finding out whether the plan you are already paying for is the plan you need.
Most people confuse a second opinion with these other things:
- A portfolio review from a new adviser. That is shopping. It costs £500 to £1,500 and ends with a sales pitch.
- A full financial plan from someone new. That is rebuilding from scratch. It costs £1,500 to £3,000 and takes three to six weeks.
- A robo-adviser assessment. That is a portfolio check, not a plan check. It tells you if your funds are sensible, not if your retirement goal is realistic.
A real second opinion answers one question: based on what you actually have, are the recommendations your adviser is making the right ones for the retirement you want?
That is a different job. It can be done in 30 minutes if you have the right three numbers written down.
The Three Numbers to Get Before You Ask Anyone
Most second-opinion attempts fail because the person asking does not have the right information to hand. Whoever you ask (an independent adviser, a guidance tool, or your existing adviser with sharper questions) needs three specific numbers to give you anything useful.
The three numbers, in order
- 1. Your total portfolio, broken down by wrapper. ISA, SIPP, workplace pension, general investment account, cash savings. Not "I have about £300,000 in pensions." Exactly where, exactly how much, as of last month. Ask your adviser for a one-page summary if you do not already have it.
- 2. Your contribution rate, by month. What is going into pensions, ISAs, and savings each month? What is your employer matching? Most UK employees contribute 5% of salary; most employers match up to 6%. On a £40,000 salary, that single gap is £1,200 to £2,400 a year. Twenty-five years of that gap, with average growth, is over £90,000 in lost retirement income.
- 3. Your target retirement age and target retirement income. Not "around 65." Specific. £35,000 a year from age 62. £50,000 a year from age 60. Without these two numbers, no one can tell you whether you are on track. They are not optional.
Once you have those three things written down, you are ready to ask. The rest of this guide is who to ask.
Where to Get the Second Opinion From
You have four realistic routes. Each one costs a different amount of money, takes a different amount of time, and answers a slightly different question.
1. Your Existing Adviser, Asked the Right Questions
Before paying anyone else, ask your current adviser four direct questions. Send them by email so the answer is in writing.
- Am I on track to retire at [your target age] with [your target income]? A good adviser will give you a number, not a hedge.
- What would I need to change to retire five years earlier? This forces them to think about the plan as a whole, not just the portfolio.
- What am I paying in total fees each year, including platform and fund charges? Most people do not actually know this number. Most advisers will tell you, in writing, within five working days.
- If you were not my adviser, what would you tell me to do? This is the question that tests whether they are recommending what is right for you, or what is easiest for them to manage.
A good adviser will answer these without flinching. A bad one will deflect, ask for a separate paid review meeting, or take more than five working days. Their answer tells you more than any second opinion you could pay for.
2. A One-Off Paid Financial Review from an Independent Adviser
Search for "fee-only financial planner UK" or "hourly financial advice UK". A qualified independent adviser will review your existing plan, your current portfolio, and your three numbers, and tell you whether they agree with the recommendations. Expect to pay £250 to £500 for a 60 to 90 minute session. Some charge a fixed fee, some charge by the hour. Both are fair; what matters is that the fee is fixed and disclosed in advance.
This is the route for people who specifically want a human to challenge the human already advising them. The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) holds a directory of regulated advisers, and most offer a free initial 15-minute conversation to scope the work.
3. A Financial Guidance Tool That Builds Your Complete Picture
This is the route most people have not heard of. Tools like Delphina connect to your existing accounts and pull the same data your adviser has access to: ISAs, pensions, investments, savings. They show you your complete financial picture, project it forward, and tell you whether you are on track for the retirement you want.
The difference is that it is not advice. It is the same picture your adviser sees, but reconstructed from your actual accounts, with a forward projection you can interrogate. If your adviser's plan matches what the projection shows, you have your second opinion within an hour. If it does not, you know exactly what to ask them at the next review.
The fee is typically a flat monthly subscription of £10 to £25, or free for the basic projection. Compare that to the £3,000 a year your adviser may be charging, and the case for checking is straightforward.
The limitation: a guidance tool will not call you during a market crash, and will not flag complex situations like defined benefit pensions, business ownership, or trust structures. For most UK households, those complications do not apply. For those where they do, route 2 (the human adviser) is the right answer.
4. The Two Registers, Before You Do Anything Else
Not a second opinion in itself, but the one check that protects every other route. There are now two separate registers that determine what your adviser is legally allowed to do for you.
- The FCA Register (register.fca.org.uk) confirms the adviser is authorised to give regulated advice in the UK.
- HMRC's MMTAR register confirms the adviser is registered to act on your behalf with HMRC for Self Assessment, capital gains, dividends, and inheritance tax. From 18 August 2026, advisers not on this register cannot legally file on your behalf.
If your adviser is not on the register that covers the work they do for you, the second opinion has already happened. The answer is in the register. Confirm before any other check.
What to Do With the Answer
You will get one of three responses. Each one has a clear next step.
If the plan matches.
Your adviser's recommendations match what an independent review or projection says. Stay. Stop doubting. The fee is paying for a competent plan, and you have just verified it. The 30 minutes of work was worth it for the certainty alone.
If the plan is broadly right but with specific gaps.
This is the most common outcome. Your adviser is doing the day-to-day competently but missing one or two things: not capturing your full employer pension match, holding too much in cash, recommending a fund with higher fees than an equivalent index tracker. Discuss the gaps with your adviser directly. Give them a chance to fix them. If they do, stay. If they push back without good reason, leave.
If the plan is wrong.
Your adviser's recommendations are not in your interest. The portfolio is in funds that underperform their benchmark. The fees are eating returns. The retirement projection falls short of your goal by hundreds of thousands of pounds. In this case, the second opinion has done its job. You now know. The next step is migrating away.
For what migrating away looks like in practice, the step-by-step is here: how to migrate away from a financial adviser.
If your situation is genuinely complex
If you have a defined benefit (final salary) pension, you run a business with both personal and corporate tax to manage, you hold multiple properties, or you have a trust structure in place, this guide is the wrong place to start. The right answer for complex situations is a fee-only financial adviser, paid by the hour for a one-off review. The cost is £250 to £500. The saving, when the call is irreversible, can be measured in tens of thousands of pounds.
The One Thing to Do This Month
If you are sitting with a quarterly review letter from your adviser and an uneasy feeling, do this before the end of August.
Email your adviser and ask for a one-page summary covering: your portfolio value by wrapper, your total annual fees (including platform and fund charges), your projected retirement income at your current contribution rate, and your projected retirement age on your current plan. Most advisers will send this within five working days.
If they will not, or if they want to charge you for a separate review meeting to produce it, the second opinion has already happened. You do not need anyone else to tell you the answer. It is the same answer the FCA register would give you, and it is not the one you were hoping for.
If they send it within five working days, you have the three numbers you need. The next conversation, with an independent adviser or with a guidance tool, takes 30 minutes. The whole exercise costs you nothing, takes less than a month, and ends with you knowing whether the plan you are paying for is the plan you need.
That is what a second opinion is for. Not to replace your adviser. To confirm whether they are worth keeping.
See What Your Adviser Sees
Add your accounts and get the same complete financial picture your adviser has, with a forward projection you can interrogate. Not advice. Not a sales meeting. Just clarity on whether the plan you are paying for is the plan you need.
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