Personal Investment Advisor Reference Verification Form

Finding the right personal investment advisor is one of the most important financial decisions you'll make. Whether you're an RIA firm conducting due diligence on a potential hire, a family office vetting advisors, or an individual investor researching credentials, this Personal Investment Advisor Reference Verification Form helps you gather critical insights from past clients and professional references.

This template is specifically designed for the financial advisory industry, focusing on the qualities that matter most when evaluating Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs): fiduciary commitment, portfolio construction expertise, client education approach, fee transparency, and the depth of advisor-client relationships.

Why Use This Reference Verification Form?

Traditional reference checks often miss the nuances that separate good advisors from great ones. This form digs deeper into:

• Fiduciary standards: Does the advisor consistently put client interests first?
• Portfolio construction: How does the advisor approach asset allocation, risk management, and diversification?
• Client education: Does the advisor empower clients with knowledge or keep them in the dark?
• Fee transparency: Are costs clearly explained and justified?
• Relationship quality: How responsive, communicative, and trustworthy is the advisor?

Perfect For

• RIA firms conducting background checks on advisor candidates
• Financial planning practices expanding their team
• Wealth management firms vetting potential partners or acquisition targets
• Family offices selecting external advisors
• High-net-worth individuals performing due diligence on prospective advisors
• Compliance officers standardizing reference check procedures

Streamline Your Verification Process

With Paperform, you can customize this template to match your firm's branding, add conditional logic to ask follow-up questions based on responses, and integrate directly with your HR systems or CRM through Stepper workflows. Submissions can automatically route to your compliance team, hiring managers, or advisory committees for review.

The form includes structured rating scales for objective assessment, open-ended questions for qualitative insights, and clear documentation of the reference's relationship to the advisor—giving you a complete picture to make confident hiring or engagement decisions.

Whether you're building a world-class advisory team or selecting a trusted partner for your financial future, this reference verification form helps you go beyond surface-level checks and understand what really matters: how an advisor serves their clients day in and day out.