Why use an advisor?
In a world of “free trading” at your fingertips, it’s smart to question why you should use a financial advisor in the first place.
While LKL offers more than just financial advisory service, we believe those services alone are worth the price of admission.
This largely comes down to 4 core value propositions: financial peace of mind, alternative investment types, security, and costs (yes, costs). Find out more below.
Peace of mind that your plan is the right plan
Let’s start with the basics. The most fundamental service a financial advisor provides is guiding a client from point A to point Z in their financial journey, structuring a portfolio that aligns with their unique goals and risk tolerances. This can be relatively simple at first, but more often than not, as your life changes, your finances need to change with it.
Ensuring that your financial plan is the right one for you and your family both today, but also in 30 years, is not something that 99% of individuals want to risk on their own or entrust to a robo-advisor.
Alternative investment types
A great financial advisor will craft a portfolio that fits your life, but can also provide access to investment types that are either not available to standard individual investors (e.g., private equity), or benefit from unique expertise of being managed by a professional (e.g., cryptocurrencies, complex bond strategies). At LKL we prioritize getting our customers access and expertise they won’t find on traditional retail platforms.
Security
Today’s financial markets, and technology more broadly, have scams, fraud, and abuse at a historic level. Latest data shows scams in the US were up 33% in 2024 to a record ~$16B. With the growing access to AI, these scams will get more dangerous and far more sophisticated.
Having a professional financial advisor manage your investments at a qualified custodian with enterprise grade security is the simplest way to ensure your money stays safe.
Additionally, our partner custodians maintain an account guarantee in the event of a security breach assuming the proper account controls are in place.
Cost savings
There are obvious financial benefits to having the right plan, but aside from this, a good financial advisor will also save you money on order execution, ETF fee charges, tax loss harvesting, and many others your advisor can discuss.
Vanguard’s 2025 Advisor Report estimated that best practices in wealth management can add up to 3% in net return performance annually, with tax strategies alone >2% (note: this is not a guarantee of performance and is simply a broad research estimate).
LKL Advisors charges a top AUM tier rate of 0.15%, and never goes above 0.75% for any client account.