From my point of view, I think it's important to understand what services a good financial planner will (and won't) provide. A good planner should realistically only spend about half the effort on investment selection and monitoring. There are also a myriad of other issues to consider such as estate planning, how to maximise government entitlements, appropriateness of insurance cover, intergenerational wealth transfer etc etc. On the investment side, I agree with woolly. You do need a material amount of time and knowledge on your hands to run your own super adequately. The other thing to think of is contingencies. What happens if you become incapacitated and are no longer able to make these decisions? What happens then? Things to think about.
I am not saying everyone must have an advisor. Nor am I saying that all advisors are great, because the sad truth is, like fund managers, the majority are barely adequate at best and poor at worst. I should know because they are my clients as I work in financial services. Yet, I use an advisor. But it's only for the non-investment side of things which can be highly complex and time-consuming. I run my own portfolios and he is happy for me to do that on the basis that anything I need him to look at is on a fee for service basis as required. That works for me.
