Most German so-called financial advisers are tied advisers and primarily salespersonnel!

ExPats, especially those from the UK, Ireland or the US, where the financial advice market is strongly regulated, are often (negatively) surprised when they find that they became an easy victim of hardselling German insurance agents or so-called "Finanzberater". The reason for this bad surprise as a result of bad advice can be found in the long-time reluctance of the German government to implement tough regulation on financial advice. Therefore, if you believe that someone who is advising you on a health insurance or a pension plan in Germany will in general have your best interest in mind (just like a financial adviser at home in the UK), you can find yourself to be severely mistaken.

Up until 2007, the German financial advisory business was not regulated. Therefore, more than 400.000 people used to roam the cities and the country as "Finanzberater" without need or proof of knowledge, training and even a liability insurance in case of faulty advice. You can still find many car-salesman-turned-financial-adviser in Germany and currently out of the 400.000 individuals offering financial advice, 318.000 are registered as part-time only and are either fully tied or multi-tied advisers working for a salesorganisation, which allows them to choose for the clients only from a limited number of insurances or investments. The new regulation through the VVG is starting to change things step by step and it is only a matter of time when most of the dependent/tied salespersonnel of pyramid-structure-sales-organizations will drop out of the market..... and good riddance that! But until this has been achieved, you need to check with a person approaching you and offering you insurances, pension plans or investment advice in Germany about his background: is he/she independent or multi-tied (German: Mehrfachagent) or tied (German: gebundener Vertreter)? What is the foundation of their skills, what is their training and so on. By law they have to offer you this information right at the beginning, but even if they forgot to do so, they have to disclose their status when you ask them directly. This is the difference by legal definition:

-Independent financial adviser: Can advise you on products from the whole of the market. Has to advise you based on the "best advice" principle
-Multi-tied adviser (German: Mehrfachagent - most large financial distribution organisations belong to this group): these advisers can only advise you on products from a limited range offered/preselected by the organisations to which they are tied, also they still have to choose and recommend the most suitable ones out of this diminished selection
- Tied adviser (German: Gebundener Vertreter): this group of advisers can only recommend the products of one company (insurance/bank) to which they are tied, usually by employment.

We at Chambervelt, Rooselain and Cie. are a truly independent broker and financial advisers and are neither connected nor bound to any insurance company or bank or financial sales organisation. And, what's even more important, we are specialized on  the typical problems and issues ExPats have as opposed to the "normal" German client, which is another reason why we, having this specific experience and knowledge, can be much better in finding client tailored solution for your individual situation.

Now why is truly independent advice so important? The following is a quote from the website of the British regulation agency FSA and sheds light on this important question:

"Getting financial advice

When you're shopping around for a financial product, it's important to know who's offering what and what will suit your needs best. There are two ways of finding this out. You can:

• gather information available from banks, building societies, adverts or online; or
• get financial advice face-to-face from an adviser.

When you gather information it's 'off the shelf' and is the same for everyone – so your own money situation is not looked at.

Financial advice is when someone has studied your personal circumstances, and assesses and recommends financial products that are suitable for you."

And this is what we do for you. We assess your individual situation, whether you plan to stay in Germany only for a short term or for a rather long period of time, whether you are single or married with children, young or older and more. And only then will we start to select from the ample products of the insurance and/or investment markets a number of options which we will discuss with you before we work out together with you a final recommendation and decision. To be able to do this it should be evident that you need a free choice as an adviser from all the market offers for any client in order to give truly independent best advice.

If you want to learn more about the different areas of our advice for ExPats, whether it is insurance, pension planning, investment or mortgages, click here for more detailed information: EXPAT Financ. Advice. There you will find detailed information especially on health insurance, but also on a number of other really relevant and important kinds of insurances as well as German pension plans with a number of interesting tax subsidies (for instance RIESTER plan) as well as other forms of investment or real estate investment/mortgage financing.

Or, if you want to have your current issues/problems dealt with straight away, you can use our Contact-form to arrange a first talk/meeting. Or call us directly at 0700-226525688.