What Makes an Advisor Trustworthy?

Trust is a crucial factor when it comes to choosing a financial advisor and in deciding whether to continue working with that advisor.

In fact, according to 2024 CEG Insights research, the single most important factor to investors when choosing a new financial advisor is the advisor’s honesty and trustworthiness.(1) The No. 1 way advisors earn trust: showing that they’re looking out for their clients’ best interests.

Whether or not you trust someone often comes down to a gut feeling—you get a sense that tells you a person is likely to do what they say they’ll do. That’s not a bad way to assess an advisor’s trustworthiness—but it’s also probably not as comprehensive an approach as you should be taking.

In addition to what your gut tells you about an advisor, you might look to see whether the advisor and their practice possess certain traits that can signify a high level of care and trustworthiness. For example:

1. A clear, defined process for managing wealth. Does the advisor have a well-defined investment methodology for managing assets—one that’s rooted in a process or investment principles that guide decision-making? Likewise, is there a process for how the advisor addresses noninvestment concerns you may have, such as estate planning or charitable giving? Ideally, you want to see that the advisor has systems in place to make the wealth management journey smooth and to better ensure they don’t make major mistakes that could jeopardize your wealth.

2. A discovery process for understanding you deeply. Advisors should spend more time asking you questions about yourself and your goals, concerns and so on—and paying close attention to your answers—than they should spend talking about themselves and all the things they can do for you. A detailed process of discovery that seeks to help an advisor understand you at a deep level can be a good sign that you can trust the advisor to design a wealth plan that is customized to your particular situation.

For example, one type of discovery process focuses in on seven aspects of an investor’s life:

• Values
• Goals
• Relationships
• Assets
• Advisors
• Process
• Interests

SIGNS OF TRUSTWORTHINESS

3. Expectation management. Trustworthy advisors aren’t likely to promise you the moon when it comes to investment returns, nor are they likely to make claims such as “your account will never lose value.” Trustworthy advisors set reasonable expectations based in facts and data, and then manage those expectations during both “hot” and “cold” market environments.

4. Fee transparency. One sign of trustworthiness is that an advisor is 100% up front about the types of fees they charge. That includes any financial arrangements they may have with outside experts or other providers with whom they partner to address client issues.

5. Responsiveness. In our experience, clients trust advisors who respond to their questions and inquiries quickly and clearly. Responsiveness can also be gauged by how proactively advisors reach out to clients during periods of market uncertainty or upheaval to check in and provide perspective and reassurance (if needed).

6. Strategic use of technology. Tech can build trust by (among other things) enabling faster response times from advisors and providing clients with access to dashboards that give them real-time views of their wealth and progress toward their goals. Trust also can be shown by the advisor’s use of advanced cybersecurity and data protection resources used to safeguard vital personal information.

7. Demonstrations of expertise. Competence breeds trust. When we see someone is highly capable of doing a job, we trust them to consistently do that job well. With advisors, expertise can be assessed in terms of their credentials, their number of years of experience, their past work history, their client retention rate and examples (if possible) of how they’ve helped people like you achieve their goals.

8. Openness to feedback and improvements. Trustworthy advisors tend to solicit (or at least be open to) feedback and suggestions from clients and others on how they can improve.

One ‘warning sign’ to think carefully about

Seemingly, one of the most obvious indicators that an advisor can’t be trusted is if they’ve been sued by a client. And certainly, that can spell trouble. But don’t automatically conclude that an advisor isn’t trustworthy because a client has sued them. False accusations can occur, and just because an investor is unhappy with an outcome doesn’t mean the advisor engaged in inappropriate or illegal behavior. The better approach is to examine the case itself and whether the advisor was found to be at fault. Of course, a history of complaints and lawsuits may indicate actual problems that serve as red flags.

Next steps

Ask yourself how well your current advisor or advisors measure up in terms of their overall trustworthiness. Do they exhibit most of the eight traits outlined above? If you’re considering working with a financial services professional, ask them about their investment process, their fees, their technology and other issues that can potentially help you assess their trustworthiness.

In either case, make trust a key priority.

(1) CEG Insights, The Pathway to Success: Understanding and Engaging Affluent Investors, 2024

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This article was published by the VFO Inner Circle, a global financial concierge group working with affluent individuals and families, and is distributed with its permission. Copyright 2026 by AES Nation, LLC.

This report is intended to be used for educational purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation to purchase any security or advisory services. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. An investment in any security involves significant risks and any investment may lose value. Refer to all risk disclosures related to each security product carefully before investing. Securities offered through Alliance Global Partners. Thomas Dowling is a registered representative of Alliance Global Partners. Thomas Dowling and Alliance Global Partners are not affiliated with AES Nation, LLC. AES Nation, LLC is the creator and publisher of the VFO Inner Circle Flash Report.