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The rise of robo-advice has been one of the biggest trends to emerge in the investment industry in recent years. It might sound very futuristic (and actually a little menacing!), but it’s actually a pretty simple concept: robo-advisers use mathematical rules or algorithms to provide financial “advice” online with limited or no human intervention.

And therein lies the rub. Robo-advisers are of course generally much cheaper than services delivered by humans, but I would argue that a very great deal of the value of advice comes from this personal interaction.

A human wealth manager will put a lot of time into understanding your situation, objectives and attitudes to things like investment risk. In contrast, a robo-adviser will base its view of your needs on what can be quite simplistic questionnaires alone.

Human advisers also act as wealth “coaches” to a large extent, helping us to see our finances holistically and make long-term, pretty complex plans. They interrogate our assumptions and bring to bear deep experience of helping similar people achieve their various goals.

None of this to say there isn’t a place for robo-advice; like DIY investing platforms before them these tools have helped many people get into investments for the first time.

Their low-costs might mean that robo might be a good option for a proportion of even very wealthy people’s money. But for all of it, surely not?

Robo-advisers tend to focus on passive (index-tracking) investments like ETFs. These may be great when markets are rising, but when the investment environment becomes less benign (as it has started to now), the value of experienced, human wealth managers will come to the fore.

Just as the investment markets are not purely rational, it is unlikely the full richness of your financial picture can be captured by an algorithm.

The wealth managers on our panel are committee to better-value fees. You may be surprised how favourably they compare to online-only options when your potential gains, risk management and tax mitigation are taken into account.

Ask yourself whether a robo-adviser can really do enough for the health of your wealth?

The wealth management industry has undoubtedly seen a lot of M&A in recent years, and we can certainly appreciate why this might make clients feel unsettled.

If you hear your wealth manager is changing hands it can bring up fears that you will lose the adviser you are used to working with, that costs might rise or that service standards will slip. Those things may well happen, but then again, they might not. You might find that the sale of your wealth manager ends up being a positive. It may be that ownership by another firm expands the technological capabilities or investment expertise on offer, for instance.

The most important thing is to keep a close eye on developments. Of course, you should be kept fully informed about any changes to how you will be serviced, particularly if an office is to be shut or advisers will have to leave the firm. Clearly, any changes to charging structures will also need to be carefully looked at.

Ongoing evaluations are good practice anyway. We always advise that investors regularly review their wealth management provider against peers to make sure they are getting the best value, investment performance and service possible. Being proactive is key.

While findaWEALTHMANAGER.com offers newcomers an effective way to fast-track through the industry, helping existing clients find better-matched relationships is also a very large part of what we do.

A merger or acquisition doesn’t necessarily signal a deterioration of service, but they can be an excellent opportunity to see if you could be getting a better deal elsewhere. As our guide to changing wealth manager makes clear, it’s actually far easier to swap provider than people tend to think, so there’s no reason to just coast along with an unsatisfactory relationship.

We only ever work with wealth managers which are committed to transparent, better-value fees, and generally the industry has been working hard to become much more client-friendly on this front in recent years.

The changes you’ve been reading about are part of the EU’s second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, a package of reforms aimed at improving competition and investor protection.

Investment managers now have to provide clients (at least annually) with a detailed summary of the assets held with them and all costs and charges associated with maintaining the portfolio. They must also spell out in detail the impact these costs have on performance.

Firms also now have to provide quarterly performance reports on all the assets held on their behalf (previously this would have been annually) and alert clients if the overall value of their portfolio depreciates by 10% (as evaluated at the end of each reporting period).

I predict that many clients of the less transparent providers might be in for a bit of a shock once they fully appreciate the charges they have been paying. It may be that some “cheap” providers are shown up as anything but.

Wealth management fees can be slightly complex by necessity as there are costs associated with custody, trading, nominee accounts and so on. Greater cost transparency will help investors appreciate all this “plumbing”, as well as to evaluate performance against costs more meaningfully. Net gains should always be your focus, which is why the firms we work with offer Total Expense Ratios to give prospective clients a thoroughgoing understanding of how much they will pay “all in”.

Our guide, What to Expect from Wealth Management Fees, provides a good introduction, while 10 Wealth Management Fees You Probably Haven’t Heard Of will help those getting more granular as they weigh up providers.