Guides › Switching Financial Advisors
Updated September 25, 2026. Quick answer: you open an account at the receiving firm and sign the transfer form there; the new firm pulls the account through ACATS. Empower Advisory Group, LLC (“EAG”), which delivers the Personal Strategy managed-account service branded “Empower Personal Wealth,” charges nothing extra of its own to end the relationship, since its Form ADV describes ending the service by written notice, with no dollar termination fee. EAG does not custody your assets itself; its own ADV names Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC as the custodian for its managed accounts. Pershing’s own published schedule lists a maximum Account Termination fee of $150.00 per account, a ceiling, since Pershing’s own document notes individual advisors commonly negotiate lower rates, and no EAG-specific negotiated figure is public.
The published numbers
From Empower Advisory Group, LLC’s Disclosure Brochure for the Personal Strategy Wrap Fee Program (dated May 18, 2026), Item 4: “Clients may cancel their participation in Services at any time by providing written notice to EAG.” No dollar exit or transfer figure appears anywhere in the brochure. From Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC’s own Schedule of Maximum Charges: “Account Termination… $150.00 per account.” The same schedule states elsewhere that “in many instances, your investment advisor has negotiated lower rates on your behalf,” so $150 is Pershing’s published ceiling, not a confirmed EAG client rate. Empower Advisory Group is the successor to Personal Capital Advisors Corporation, whose own SEC registration is now inactive at the same address, a disclosed succession, not a separate live registrant.
| What | Figure |
|---|---|
| Empower Advisory Group’s own exit charge | $0.00 extra: ends by written notice, no dollar termination fee stated (Form ADV) |
| Full transfer-out at Pershing | $150.00 per account, Pershing’s own published MAXIMUM (Schedule of Maximum Charges); many clients pay a negotiated rate below this ceiling |
| IRA / Roth IRA / education savings account annual maintenance (Pershing) | $45.00 per account, per year (same schedule) |
| ACATS validation + completion window | 1 business day to validate, 3 business days to complete (FINRA Rule 11870) |
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Source: WiserAdvisor’s service descriptionThe sequence
1. Pull a current statement for every account, showing the exact registration, account numbers and complete holdings list. 2. Check the holdings for anything that will not move. Ask the receiving firm directly: “Can you hold every position on this statement?” Anything they cannot hold has to be sold, and in a taxable account that is a realised gain in the year you switch: the categories that commonly do not transfer. 3. Open the receiving account and sign the transfer form there. Under FINRA Rule 11870 the delivering firm then has one business day to validate and three business days after validation to complete. 4. Send a dated termination letter for the record: the generator writes it, and confirm in writing that billing has stopped.
Two things to get right
Cost basis. Under IRC §6045A the delivering broker must furnish a transfer statement carrying basis for covered securities within 15 days of the transfer. Keep your final statements anyway, and check the first statement at the new firm for positions showing a missing or zero basis. Retirement accounts move as a direct transfer, trustee to trustee, not as a distribution to you. Why that distinction matters. Whether a transfer fee is worth paying at all is a question of what you are moving to: our benchmark of published adviser fee schedules puts the weighted median annual cost near $2,000 to $2,500 on $250,000: the benchmark. The general mechanics: switching financial advisors.
Want to know what Empower Personal Wealth charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Empower Personal Wealth’s own fee disclosure.
Sources
- Empower Advisory Group, LLC, Disclosure Brochure for the Personal Strategy Wrap Fee Program (May 18, 2026): https://dcprovider.com/eag/EAG-ADV-Part-2A-Brochure-Personal-Strategies.pdf
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Empower Advisory Group, LLC firm summary (CRD 112058): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/112058
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Empower Advisory Group, LLC Form CRS: https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/crs/crs_112058.pdf
- Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC, Schedule of Maximum Charges: https://www.pershing.com/content/dam/pershing/documents/pdfs/disclosures/pas-schedule-of-maximum-charges.pdf
Methodology. This page was built September 25, 2026, drawing on Empower Personal Wealth’s own Form ADV/wrap-fee brochure/fee schedule plus each named custodian’s own published fee schedule, with sources linked inline; any figure we could not independently confirm this session on a firm-owned or custodian-owned document is named as an honest gap above rather than presented as verified. Nothing here is personalized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice. See our Editorial Policy, Corrections, Affiliate Disclosure, and Disclaimer.
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