Client First • Integrity • Objectivity • Competence • Fairness • Confidentiality • Diligence • Professionalism

Our Fees 

Our financial planning and investment management services are charged as a percentage of assets under advisement. Managed assets consist of funds and securities for which you wish CWM to provide advice or exercise supervision and/or investment authority.

Our fee is 1% annually of the assets under advisement, but may be negotiable based upon a client’s particular circumstances.

Why Fee-Only?

Our fee structure is simple.  We only accept fees from clients. This makes us a fee-only wealth management firm.  At CWM we will never try to sell you anything where we would receive a commission.

As a member of NAPFA, the required annual fiduciary oath reads, “The advisor, or any party in which the advisor has a financial interest, does not receive any compensation or other remuneration that is contingent on any client’s purchase or sale of a financial product. The advisor does not receive a fee or other compensation from another party based on the referral of a client or the client’s business.”

We are not salespeople looking to earn a commission at your expense.  We act as fiduciaries on your behalf. In other words, no cross-selling of insurance, annuities, loans and other products. Your interests are placed first. Advisors who receive commmissions are not held to a fiduciary standard. 

Why is it important to work with a fee-only advisor? There are basically 3 types of advisor service models:

• Fee-Only – This model minimizes conflicts of interest and legally requires the advisor to serve clients with a fiduciary standard of care. The fiduciary standard of care requires the advisor to put their client’s interest first and charges the client directly for his or her advice and/or ongoing management. Fees are fully disclosed and easily understood. No other financial reward is provided by any institution—which means that the advisor does not receive commissions, rebates or any compensation from third parties. A fee-only advisor’s allegience is to his client, not some third-party who pays him. 
• Fee-Based (fee and commission) – This service model is often confused with Fee-Only, but it’s not the same. Fee-based advisors charge clients a fee for the advice delivered, but they also sometimes receive payments for products they sell or recommend. In some cases, commissions are credited towards the fee, giving the appearance of a lower-priced option, but any outside compensation lessens the advisor’s ability to keep the client’s best interests first and foremost. The SEC requires broker-dealers to add the following disclosure to their client agreements. Read this disclosure and decide if this is the type of relationship you want to dictate your financial security:

“Your account is a brokerage account and not an advisory account. Our interests may not always be the same as yours. Please ask us questions to make sure you understand your rights and our obligations to you, including the extent of our obligations to disclose conflicts of interest and to act in your best interest. We are paid both by you and, sometimes, by people who compensate us based on what you buy. Therefore, our profits and our salespersons’ compensation may vary by product and over time.”

• Commissions – An advisor who is compensated through commissions is primarily a salesperson. A client working with a commissioned salesperson must always ask themselves: Is this advice truly in my best interest, or is it the most profitable product for the advisor? Unfortunately, often the answer is the latter. In fact, a commissioned advisor usually is required to put the best interests of his employer ahead of the best interests of his client. If you are not paying your financial advisor, who is? That is who they work for.

When it comes to fee-based or commission-only advisors, in our experience, the “suitable” product of choice often tends to be annuities and life insurance products which just so happen to pay significant commissions.

Good consumers understand that the fees they pay have an impact on their investment returns.  That is why we make sure each client knows how much they will pay by putting it in writing.