When consumers look for a financial adviser, experience is often the first credential they check.
Years in the business signal stability and familiarity with market cycles and client complexities. These qualities understandably build trust.
But as planning complexities evolve (tech workforce disruption, longer lifespans, a morphing tax code, government debt dilemmas), experience alone is likely not enough.
New findings from The American College of Financial Services' 2026 Advisor Expertise Study suggest that while experience has value, it's not a reliable indicator on its own of expertise, particularly in the areas that matter most as clients transition into and live through retirement.
The research highlights a growing gap between what many advisers say they offer and how proficiently they deliver those services, with real consequences for retirement and legacy outcomes.
Experience doesn't equal expertise
The study examined how nearly 500 financial professionals deliver eight core financial planning services, including general financial planning, portfolio management, tax planning and retirement income planning.
Researchers developed an Advisor Expertise Index to measure not just whether advisers offer these services, but how skillfully they deliver them — classifying proficiency as basic, intermediate or advanced.
One finding stood out immediately: There is no meaningful relationship between an adviser's years of experience and their level of expertise.
Advisers delivering services at the lowest proficiency levels averaged nearly two decades in the profession — roughly the same tenure as those delivering services at the highest levels. Across all services studied, only 49% were delivered at an advanced level, while the remaining 51% were delivered with only basic or intermediate proficiency.
For consumers who assume longevity equals mastery, that finding challenges a deeply rooted belief.
Where the gaps are most costly
Not all financial planning services carry equal risk, and the study shows that expertise gaps are concentrated in the disciplines with the greatest long-term consequences.
More than half of advisers who identify retirement income planning and tax planning as core services don't deliver those services at an advanced level. In both categories, 57% demonstrate only basic or intermediate proficiency, the largest gaps across all areas measured.
These findings help explain a familiar client's experience. Advisers may be highly effective during the accumulation years, when success is measured largely by growth.
But once a client transitions into retirement, shifting from building wealth to converting it into sustainable income, planning shortcomings often surface.
Mistakes in retirement are harder to fix. Decisions involving Social Security claiming, tax-efficient withdrawals, required minimum distributions and longevity risk compound over time. During accumulation, markets can mask weaknesses. In retirement, they expose them.
Sophisticated clients gravitate toward expertise
The study also reveals how expertise influences the kinds of clients advisers serve.
Across every planning category, advisers with higher expertise were significantly more likely to serve households with more than $500,000 in net worth. The contrast was sharpest in tax planning: Advisers delivering tax services at an advanced level served high-net-worth clients at more than twice the rate of those delivering those services at a basic level.
A similar pattern appeared in retirement income planning. Advisers with advanced retirement expertise were far more likely to work with affluent retirees than peers offering the same services with less proficiency.
This isn't about exclusivity; it reflects complexity. Higher-net-worth households tend to face more intricate planning challenges, and complexity rewards depth of expertise. Clients with more at stake are often better positioned to recognize it.
Education drives expertise — not time
If experience alone doesn't explain expertise, what does?
The data consistently point to applied knowledge, particularly structured, specialized education. Advisers holding professional designations scored higher on the Advisor Expertise Index across every planning area. Those with multiple designations averaged five points higher (on a 60-point scale) than advisers with none — a meaningful difference in demonstrated capability.
Nowhere is this more important than retirement income planning. Despite being one of the most offered services, only 43% of advisers who say they provide retirement income planning deliver it at an advanced level.
Advisers with specialized retirement education were significantly more likely to do so, and to work with clients whose financial lives demand that expertise.
The findings challenge another widely held assumption: That expertise automatically accumulates with time. Without deliberate education, many advisers plateau, relying on familiar strategies even as tax laws, product structures and longevity dynamics evolve.
Why retirement requires a different skill set
Retirement represents a fundamental shift in planning priorities.
- During accumulation, progress is measured by returns and time horizon.
- During retirement, success is defined by reliability, producing income while managing risk and preserving purchasing power over decades.
That shift requires tighter coordination across planning disciplines. Tax decisions can matter as much as investment returns. Withdrawal strategy can outweigh asset allocation. Longevity is no longer a distant consideration but a central planning variable.
It also requires action. In retirement, inaction is often a choice that can quietly erode outcomes over time.
This is where the difference between experience and expertise becomes especially visible. Experience reflects what an adviser has seen. Expertise reflects how well they can adapt that knowledge to a client's current reality.
What consumers should look for in choosing an adviser
For investors, the takeaway isn't to dismiss experience, but to look beyond it.
A long CV tells you an adviser has been present through multiple market cycles. It doesn't tell you how they approach retirement income planning today, how they coordinate tax decisions over a multidecade retirement or how they manage the risk of living longer than expected.
As the profession disclaims, past performance isn't indicative of future results.
Better questions include:
- How do you determine which accounts to draw from first — and why?
- How does your planning approach change as tax rules change?
- How do you measure whether a retirement income strategy is working?
- What specialized education informs these decisions?
Retirement today is not a static endpoint. It's a long, dynamic phase that requires continuous adjustment. The best-equipped advisers to guide clients through it aren't simply those with the longest track records, but those who have invested in developing and maintaining true expertise.
By the time many consumers engage with an adviser, the value is no longer in how much the adviser helps them make. It's in how much of their hard-earned savings they can keep, make last and pass on.
Experience may open the door. Expertise is what keeps it open.
Related Content
- Past Performance Is Not Indicative of Your Financial Adviser's Expertise
- How Savvy Is Your Financial Adviser? Three Ways to Find Out
- How to Find a Financial Adviser for Retirement Planning
- Want to Hire a Financial Planning Firm? Five Questions to Ask
- 5 Ways to Help Sort the Best From the Rest When Hiring a Financial Adviser
This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.
