\Some countries like the United States of America, France and Senegal are.

Other countries like Madagascar, Bangladesh and Iran used to be.

and

There’s quite a lot of ambiguity in countries including Norway, Malaysia and the UK.

What I’m talking about is secularism.

The separation of church and state.

The concept where states treat all individuals equally and are not affiliated with one  particular government sponsored religious belief.  

Secular states aren’t perfect. They all have their own particular local issues and problems. They make mistakes.

However I’ve always liked the fact that ideally secular countries provide all individuals complete and total freedom of belief regardless of religion, race or creed

Interestingly the UK is in reality increasingly secular but hasn’t taken the ultimate move of separating church and state and I feel incredibly lucky to be born in a country where anyone can believe in anything they want.

In the same way that Secular states aren’t perfect. Countries with a state religion (like, for instance, Morocco or Tunisia) have in a lot of ways much going for them.

I’ve just never liked the idea of the assumption that any large entity controlled by a few number of individuals could make the assumption that I should believe what they believe and understand enough about me to make that judgement.

Since I can remember financial advice in the UK has been anything but secular.

Before we explore the issue in more depth let’s confirm one important point…

Getting financial advice or seeing a financial planner is a good thing.

It’s been shown time and time again that individuals who receive financial advice get better financial results.

However there is a public mistrust of financial advisers which in part is due to a feeling of a lack of transparency (often unfounded but sometimes true) which needs to be confronted and explained before we can move forward.

So, lets be clear. Product providers and advisers (the church and the state in this example) have been working too closely together for way too many years. This includes being reliant on product providers for payment.

This has meant that whilst there were many advisers who always made independent (secular) and fee based (free from provider reliance and more transparent) decisions there are plenty of advisers who were (and a few who still are) reliant on their provider or providers of choice.

This leads to decisions being made which might be in the best interest of providers and advisers but with clients potentially not receiving the best outcomes.

The good news is solving this problem is easy.

As individuals we should pay for financial advice the same way we pay for legal or accountancy advice not as commission (or even fees through a product) but in cold hard cash.

This separates the church of the life assurance companies, builds more trust in the advisory community and means far better outcomes for all.

I’m not suggesting this move is easy. Within our business we’ve had to (and continue to) make changes to make our service to ensure we provide a service which is fair, transparent and where there should be a clear line between the professional advice advisers provide and the products they recommend.

This style of advice fee won’t suit everybody. Many advisers still feel comfortable in an environment where they are paid via a product.

Interestingly, even though it can put them at a long term disadvantage, many clients will still prefer to pay for advice from their Investment fund, Pension or ISA instead of their bank account.

As a secularist I’m comfortable with this (more choice is better for all). However, and having given it some in depth thought, I believe one thing…

The bolder the line between financial advice and financial product the better outcome for you as a consumer of both.