Doctors are more likely to seek out the help of a financial advisor than millionaires and ultra-high-net-worth investors, says the Spectrem Group.
The Spectrem Group, a market research firm based in Lake Forest, Ill., stated that the percentage of doctors using a professional advisor was “far above the percentage of all investors.”
Based on a survey of 160 doctors, Spectrem concluded that 79 percent of physicians compared to 64 percent of millionaires ($1 million to $5 million) and 69 percent of investors making $5 million or more use a professional advisor.
Spectrem’s report also found that physicians favor independent financial planners over investment managers.
Twenty-seven percent use an independent financial planner compared to three percent who use an investment manager. The figures were closer for investors in other professions, said Spectrem, with 15 percent using a planner and 11 percent using a manager.
Dan Johnson, a financial planner and founder of Forward Thinking Wealth Management, where half the clientele is comprised of physicians, told Spectrem that physicians come to him for everything from employee benefits to estate planning to taxes.
“Most of them get little to no training and background in how to manage their practice,” said Johnson. “A lot of them come out with quite a bit of debt, have been preyed upon, and left their advisor because they couldn’t get a straight answer.”
Johnson said his physicians like transparency and prefer data over a “gut feeling.”
“They like evidence-based investing; they want to know the reason and the logic and the data behind it,” Johnson said.