Creative Planning

Outstanding financial acumen and customer service. They have managed our portfolio for years with great reults

I was a customer of creative planning for about a year. When they solicit you for business they promise and over commit to a lot of things. I found my rep Anpu very difficult to get communication from and it seems they want to put you into investments that are more beneficial to their organization than to the client. Not sure if this is a fiduciary relationship.

When I asked questions and guidance to keep our goals aligned it fell on deaf ears. Please do yourself a favor and ask questions but please don't be surprised after the money is transferred the service level is transferred to a lower tiers as well. It seems like creative planning is more of a multi level marketing designed to bring in cash (aum) rather than looking out for your best interest.

Never received a follow up call after several emails requesting one. Sad sad but true.

Really enjoyed the lawyer they recommended in FL but other than that not a pleasant experience.

We live in MA and can only speak to this area could be a lot different in other parts of the country.

Sam Dominguez, Wealth Manager at Creative Planning, has been managing my funds for 4 years. Disappointingly, my net return was 7% over the lifetime of my investment and his fee was 1% of my total asset, a whopping 6% return. Even CDs are 5.5%. His high fee ddn't justify the poor performance so I switched to Vanguard. I guess my Wealth Manager was managing HIS wealth. Don't use Creative Planning!

I have IN WRITING that they would do a Roth conversion for me EVERY YEAR. In 2023, they did NOT and are now scrambling for excuses as for why this was not done. I escalated my complaint, and got different excuses from each individual I talked to. There is no excuse for something that I have in writing ... and now I have lost an entire year of conversions!

Also, they threw large amounts of my investments in under performing funds in 2021. After an entire year of poor performance, their excuse was that it will eventually come back. Two years later, several of them are STILL underwater, with no rebalancing! They are not worth the hype nor fees that you pay. I wish I would've insisted that they pull me out of the funds that I was complaining about, but with the fees I was paying... I shouldn't have to babysit them! I regret that now! The majority of my investments were doing better before I turned it over to them!

So far so good but we are still in the process of moving assets over. I've read a number of reviews about poor timing. Investing is a long game so will update this review in five years. To date our adviser A. Hoops and his team has been responsive and helpful. We'd recommend him for sure.

WARNING - Do not sign with Creative Planning.
In 2022/23 I paid 1% fee on my portfolio management and CP lost 14% for a total loss of 15% on a money stash for my retirement.

Any recommendations for a trustworthy asset management firm?

I've been with them a little over two years after they acquired a private firm I was aligned with. In these two years, I'm still trying to figure out what they're doing for me other than making sure they get their management fees. I'm definitely not making money with them-time to move forward with another firm.

I highly recommend Ealing Jahn and Clay Baker as advisors and specialists.
They were great through both the ups and downs.

After over 7 years I left Creative Planning due to many ongoing issues. They were just plain sloppy in execution of many activities. They rarely were punctual in having annual reviews... once it went for 2 years before they could find time. They "forgot" to pay the IRS after they filed my taxes. But the most egregious issue was they recommended an annuity ( kick back ??) and then, even though the annuity was managed by the annuity firm, Creative Planning charged me quarterly management fees for "managing" an annuity which was being managed by the annuity provider. When I discovered that, it was the last straw ands I left. I won't even go into the extremely poor performance of the portfolio under their watch. Do your homework, benefit from my experience and look elsewhere.

In 2015 I started using CP legal services for my estate planning and they did a superb job for a fee. However, when it came to their investment performance CP is pitiful. I trusted CP to invest my funds for a long enough time (Feb 2018 to Jan 2023 almost 5 years) to realize the mistake. During that same period my 401k which I personally managed outperformed my CP portfolio even when they roughly had about the same amount of cost basis. The only difference was that CP was charging me thousands annually in commissions. So in Jan 2023 I completely severed my relationship with CP and regret not doing it sooner.

Here are my CP issues during my 5 years:
1) They paid more attention to administrative issues such as keeping your dashboard (which consisted of: insurance, estate, bank records) up to date than adequately managing the performance of my funds.
2) They would deflect blame for their meager portfolio performance by telling me I had to look at the long term picture. Okay, well my 401k was long term too so why did it outperform my CP portfolio? I believe if I did not have another portfolio to compare to I would have continued believing CP.
3) When we told CP to invest my wife's funds conservatively CP simply threw everything into bonds and never bothered to address that between 2000-2023 she had consistent losses!
4) They simply took us for granted as being too dumb to challenge them.
5) The irony is that CP rightly says to invest in index funds and they are absolutely correct. So why do I need them? My 401k was all invested in index funds and continues to perform great without all the commissions.
6) Regarding your financial projections into the future and how to properly allocate and manage distributions - there are plenty of a financial advisors who can prepare that information for free or for a minimal fee.