Guides › Switching Financial Advisors
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: there is no rush and no default. Your accounts stay exactly where they are until you sign a transfer form — the adviser cannot take them with them. And there is a rule built for this exact moment: under FINRA Rule 2273, the firm that recruited your adviser must deliver you an educational communication when it first contacts you individually about moving your assets, and must keep doing so for three months after the adviser joins. FINRA also publishes the questions to ask, and the first one is the one nobody volunteers.
FINRA’s five questions
These are FINRA’s own words, from its investor guidance on a registered financial professional changing firms: “Could financial incentives create a conflict of interest for your registered professional?” — recruiting packages are commonly tied to the assets an adviser brings across, which is a conflict worth naming out loud rather than a scandal. “Can you transfer all your holdings?” “What costs will you pay—both in the short term and ongoing—if you change firms?” “How do the products at the new firm compare with your current firm?” “What level of service will you have?” Ask all five, out loud, in one conversation. An adviser worth following will answer them without flinching.
What the answers usually reveal
On holdings: some products, particularly certain mutual funds and annuities, may not move to the new firm at all — and if they have to be sold, that is a tax event in a taxable account and a surrender charge in some contracts. This is the same “not readily transferable” category FINRA Rule 11870 addresses in ordinary transfers — the categories and the tax consequence of each. On costs: you may pay a transfer or termination fee at the old firm and face a different pricing structure at the new one — get the new firm’s fee schedule in writing, because Form ADV Part 2A Item 5.A requires an adviser to provide it and to say whether fees are negotiable. What switching costs.
Three checks before you decide
Look up the new firm, not just the adviser. The person may be excellent and the firm a different proposition entirely: how to read BrokerCheck, IAPD and CRD disclosures. Ask why they moved. You are entitled to the reason, and the answer is informative either way. Compare the new fee against the market, not against the old fee. Our benchmark of published adviser fee schedules puts the weighted median annual cost near $3,750 to $5,000 on $500,000 and $8,750 to $10,000 on $1 million — the full benchmark. If you decide not to follow, you do not automatically keep the old firm either: choosing a third option is the same mechanical process, and the account stays put while you take your time.
Following an adviser is a decision about the firm, not only the person.
Meeting one independent alternative is the cheapest way to price the offer you have been given. The matching service below introduces you to advisers who pay to meet you.
Before you start, what actually happens. The form is run by Kapitalwise, our advisor-matching partner. It asks about nine questions — age, investable assets, location — then your name, email and phone number, and verifies the phone by text.
Kapitalwise sends your details to advisers who pay for the introduction, so expect calls and texts. Clear Money Guide is paid when you submit the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone. Nothing loads and nothing reaches Kapitalwise until you press the button.
Compare fees, scope, conflicts, credentials and fiduciary duty before you hire anyone.
The Kapitalwise form opens here — you stay on this page.