How To Tell Who Is Actually On Your Side

The short answer

Ask one question first: how are you paid, and by whom? Then ask for the answer in writing. Almost everything you need to know about an advisor is downstream of that answer, and the people you should worry about are the ones who make it complicated.

We are a fee-only firm, so we have an interest in this comparison. We have written it to be checkable rather than persuasive, and every claim below links to a source you can verify without us.

How do financial advisors actually get paid?

• Fee-only. Paid only by clients. No commissions, no product sales, no referral payments from insurers or fund companies. NAPFA defines the standard.
• Fee-based. Charges fees and can also earn commissions. The word looks like fee-only and does not mean it.
• Commission. Paid by the products sold. Not automatically bad, and unavoidably a conflict when the recommendation and the paycheck are the same event.

Separately, ask about the standard of care. A fiduciary must act in your best interest. That is a different question from compensation, and you want both answers. A fiduciary paid by commissions still has a conflict; the duty constrains it rather than removing it.

The questions, in order

You can run this in a first meeting. Note the answers.

• How are you paid, by whom, and will you put it in writing?
• Are you a fiduciary at all times, in writing? The phrase at all times matters. Some advisors are fiduciaries for part of the relationship and not for the rest.
• Do you receive any compensation from anyone other than me? Referral fees, revenue sharing, insurance commissions, or payments from a fund family.
• Who holds my money? The correct answer is an independent qualified custodian, not the advisor.
• What is your relationship with my agent? Any referral arrangement in either direction should be disclosed without hesitation.
• What is your disciplinary history? Then check it yourself at SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure and FINRA BrokerCheck. Both are free and take two minutes.
• Have you worked with athletes, and what happens to my plan when I stop playing? An advisor who has no answer to the second half has not thought about your actual problem.

Who does what: agent, CPA, advisor, or business manager?

• Agent or marketing representative. Finds and negotiates deals. Usually paid a percentage of what they bring in. Under NCAA rules you may use one, and you must disclose their identity and the terms of their compensation.
• CPA. Prepares and files returns, handles compliance, and can advise on entity structure. Paid by you, typically hourly or by engagement.
• Financial advisor or planner. Plans across years: reserves, cash flow, retirement accounts, investments, and the transition out. Compensation model varies, which is the whole point of this page.
• Business manager. Runs day-to-day money operations, pays bills. Broad access to accounts, so this is the role where independent oversight matters most.

Keeping these separate is not bureaucracy. It is the ordinary control that keeps any one person from being the only one who can see what is happening.

What are the warning signs?

• Urgency. An opportunity that cannot survive a week of consideration is telling you what it is.
• Guaranteed or projected returns. Nobody can promise investment returns, and it is a violation to imply otherwise.
• Insurance or annuities as a first recommendation to a young athlete with no dependents. Large commissions, rarely the right first move.
• Custody by the advisor. Your money should sit with an independent custodian in an account you can log into.
• Discouraging a second opinion. A good advisor is comfortable being checked.
• No written fee disclosure. There is no legitimate reason for this.

Why does independent advice matter for athletes?

The most useful finding in this area is not the widely-repeated claim that most athletes go broke, which traces to a 2009 magazine article with no published methodology. It is a peer-reviewed study of 2,016 NFL players drafted between 1996 and 2003, which found 1.9 percent had filed for bankruptcy within two years of retirement and 15.7 percent within twelve, and that longer careers and higher career earnings had little measurable effect on the risk (Carlson, Kim, Lusardi and Camerer, American Economic Review, 2015).

Earning more did not solve it. That is the argument for structure and for independent advice, and it is a stronger argument than the exaggerated version.

Where we stand

Remnant Wealth is a fee-only fiduciary Registered Investment Advisor in Carmel, Indiana, serving athletes and families nationwide. We are paid by our clients and by nobody else. We do not sell insurance, we do not earn commissions, we do not take referral fees, and we do not negotiate deals, because that is an agent's job and mixing the two creates exactly the conflict this page is about.

You can verify all of that at SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure before you ever speak to us, which is how it should work.

Remnant Wealth LLC does not provide legal or tax advice. This page is general educational information, not personalized advice, and tax rules change. Figures cited are current as of August 2026 and are linked to their sources. Work with your own CPA and attorney before acting on anything here.