Chris Carlin take on industry super funds
From LinkedIn
Barefoot Investor calls industry super fund “a total disgrace” Confirming what financial planners have been saying for over a decade! I know I have criticised The Barefoot Investor in the past But his column this week was absolutely right on the money Under the subheading “Is HESTA Super Going Broke?” he finally called out HESTA (and subliminally industry funds in general) for the “service” they provide. The full article is in the first comment, but some highlights include:
“Whether to put up with (HESTAs) half-arsed service”
“If the CEO of CommBank (locked clients out of their money for seven weeks) he’d be taco meat by Tuesday”
“They spend thousands of millions each year flying around the world … to pick winning investments … yet they have outsourced the very thing that their customers need: reliable, safe and seamless access to their money!”
This is what financial planners have saying for 10+ years! It is just impossible to work with industry funds who have:
- Shunned the financial planning community
- Failed to evolve their service offering
- Incapable of providing administrative and implementation support for anything slightly more complicated than a change of address! It’s not just HESTA. This week alone I have butted heads with GESB, QSuper, and CBUS over matters that are routine for other platforms. And now industry funds aren’t even performing that well! I reviewed a client with QSuper this week who has invested with QSuper Lifetime Sustainable 2 Option, a “Balanced 50/50” portfolio with a 10 year average performance of a “whopping” 3.60%!!!
The client would have been better off leaving the funds in cash! So what can you do about it? Firstly, don’t just make changes blindly and create unintended consequences.
Talk to a financial planner about your options.
- Consider investing in geared managed funds for long term returns
- Look at insurance options both inside and outside of super
- Consider whether it is more advantageous to invest more in your personal name for tax and/or estate planning purposes?
At the end of the day, don’t work with a super fund which provides a half-arsed service. Work with a super fund/investment platform that knows it is 2026 and not stuck in 2016. Service, transparency, flexibility and options are not “optional extras”, they are minimum standard. And definitely don’t work with a super fund which locks your money away for seven weeks! As Scott Pape says, it is a total disgrace.