Financial planners. We all look alike online. Our websites seem to say the same thing. "Your Trusted Advisor." "We Care." "We Customize." "Wealth Manager to the Stars." Even the fee-only ones, the "good guys" according to financial columnist Bob Veres, all carry similar messages.

In our view, a website is not the best place to find a professional, whether a doctor or a housekeeper, much less a financial planner. But where do people go when they don't know where else to turn? Their brother-in-law the insurance agent? Their college roommate at Merrill Lynch? Sometimes they're not too sure about those, either. Thus begins the drudgery of reading websites, emailing, and wading through charts, maps, tables, and biographies.

So, why do we even have a website? Several reasons:

1) Because sometimes people don't know what they should be asking. If we are to be at all helpful to those lost in such a search, we should provide a tool, a guide, a compass. Here it is: Tough Questions to Ask a Financial Planner.

2) Or, because they have minimum educational or licensing standards they like to see met before they pick up the phone and call. If that's you, click here to see if we make the grade or not.

3) Some people would like to know they are in the planner's "target market," not the exception to it. If that's you, click here to find out which you are.

4) Others would like to make sure their planner is a fiduciary, duty-bound to put their interests first. Click here for a copy of our Fiduciary Oath.

"Target Market"

As disclosed in our ADV filed with the state of Florida (see Disclosures in "About Us"), Independent Insights has no "minimum account size." Typically our clients have one or more of these experiences:

• They have been to an estate planning attorney once or twice in their lives; or
• They have considered a certified public accountant for tax preparation; or
• They have not had an investment advisor who understood the "big picture,"; or
• They have no banker assigned to them or their company at their bank; or
• They have purchased large insurance policies but never heard from the agent after the policy sale; or
• They can't remember why they have trusts in one place or joint accounts in another.