Financial advisor fees query

Hi everyone, I'd like some advice on fees for our financial advisor has quoted us. He is taking over from our previous advisor, and points out all of what our previous guy didn't do for us. He talks a good game, and I've done some checking on him and he seems reputable (a lot more so than out previous advisor). In any event, the company is Ameriprise, and I am aware they are independent agents so his fee would be $1600 per year. Is this reasonable?
Thanks for any assistance rendered.

first off, i want to be up front so you know i am a "competitor" to AMEX. you need to know that in determining if there is any bias.

i do not hold AMEX (Ameriprise) in high regard. GENERALLY (and from here-out, all my comments should be prefaced with GENERALLY), ameriprise (AMP) has two fundamental flaws.

1. they are not truly independent. in regards to investments they have long been criticized for pushing all their investing clients into one primary fund family.

2. they are not truly independent. in regards to life products they only recommend VUL (and they recommend it to everyone) and they only offer one company for the VUL.

there are other reasons, but they are immaterial for this post.

i have said it before, the company (like AMP) is less important than the advisor. it is only when you dont have a solid referral to an excellent advisor that i place extrordinary emphasis on the company. so, if this guy has great recommendations from his clients and is speaking your language (values wise, not promises about what he CAN do), then i would seriously consider him. however, for him to be working for a company that has been fined and censured as much as AMP has, it makes me wonder about his professionalism.

1MO, thanks for the response and info provided. Our previous 'advisor' did push specific funds, and seemed very motivated to sell specific insurance, which this new guy gladly pointed. He didn't bad-mouth him, but he pointed out a few areas where he should have helped us more than he helped himself. At the very least I will hear what his plan of action is to see if he is full of it or not, especially since I am a little bit more informed.
Thanks again.

$_novice, Ameriprise doesn't provide financial advice. They sell life insurance, annuities and proprietary mutual funds under the guise of providing financial advice. They're not independent even though they portray that they're independent. Paying them 1600 dollars would be similar to walking into your local Ford dealership and giving them 1600 bucks to show you Ford cars. You should visit http://www.ameriprisesuck.com

Months later, but I can't resist this one. Who knows? the original poster may still be out there. I need to check in on this site more often.

Novice...and anyone else out there considering ameriprise,

Like 1 MO, I too have a disclaimer. I am a former Amex advisor. I started my career there. I stayed 8 months.

It is the way in which Ameriprise is structured that results in a fundamental flaw in their advisors, and their advice. They hire out of college, or new to the industry, and don't pay much to start with. In order to survive there, and make your quota, you must hit a certain level of revenue. This goal is unfortunately, very difficult to attain when you start with zero clients. The goal will essentially force you to squeeze every possible bit of revenue you can from each client you eventually acquire.

Now, not many high net worth clients out there will trust their assets to a brand new advisor, so you won't be hitting your goals by investing your clients' assets. You hit it with...Insurance. Both previous posters accused amex of this, and they are most certainly right. Insurance can make a new advisor $5,000 off of a client that only has $10,000, by making the client invest that money in a VUL (insurance). Amex pays incredibly high percentages for insurance (mostly because it is proprietary).

To be quite honest, I wasn't aware of how biased my recommendations were at first. Our training was largely centered around solving financial plans, and it felt like VULs were simply a great solution to most problems. They brainwashed us, in a way. When no one contradicts what you are being taught, why question it? It's like religion. You could raise a baby to worship grasshoppers, and as long as no one ever disagreed...well you get the point.

Back to the fundamental flaw. We had to recommend insurance to everyone to survive. We believed we were still doing the right thing, because insurance was the answer in all of our hypothetical plans. We actually thought that we were doing the right thing for the client. Kinda scary if you think about it. There's over 10,000 Ameriprise advisors out there.

This is a generality, but oh well. Stay away from Ameriprise. Either your advisor is too green, too lazy to go to a better institution, or is corrupt. An exceptionally rare exception would be an advisor who came to Ameriprise from another institution. Then just question why the heck they moved there.

Insurance is still a powerful tool for many investors, but not all. If someone recommends insurance to you, just make sure you understand everything, and I mean everything, about what you are getting into.

First off my friend being competitive is on your side,sounds like great advice on here for you to look into.But the bottom line is wwwwwwwwwway to much.Dont be swagged,if your being charged a fee to get you out of financial stress then what,your deeper in debt then started.Having a FNA is in your best interest to see if a advisor is what you need,maybe just a finance rep and there is a difference between the two.In your case there are companys out there that offer solutions without any money out of pocket.
Good luck

dang, that sphinks dude can parse a sentence!