What does the FA do for me? In no particular order: .. ...
Obviously I am not 100% certain that this is worthwhile -- otherwise I suppose I would not have raised the question on this forum. But it feels like it is worthwhile.
I know that you are happy with the FA, but he makes $75,000 off your 12 million every year, at 60 bp, for what seems like a couple of hours work.
Yes, $75,000 year in and year out is a considerable amount! As far as the 'needs', my opinion:
(1) helps me avoid making emotional or "reactive" financial or investment decisions -- which in a perfect world I would not have to pay someone to do, because it is within my own control, but alas we humans are imperfect;
A little education should fix this. Once you understand that markets go up and markets go down, and that your FA is unlikely to have any 'secret sauce' to help with that, it should be easy to just do it.
(2) gives me access to Dimension funds;
And what does that do for you?
(3) does more diversification than I would do on my own and rebalances often;
Why can't you easily diversify on your own? And how much diversification is needed? Rebalancing is EZ, and studies show- unnecessary.
(4) does some tax lost harvesting, which has been valuable with the market volatility;
OK, but that sure isn't rocket science , esp if you keep your portfolio simple.
(5) interacts with my accountant, saving me the time of doing so;
For what purpose?
(6) provides advice about asset allocation, insurance, investment questions, and other issues that come up from time to time -- and helps me think through how to balance competing goals (eg, minimizing risk versus achieving acceptable returns);
That is discussed all the time here, from people with no possible financial interest/conflict, Again, not rocket science.
(7) runs various projections and retirement scenarios that show me how much money I would have to live on, and with what degree of confidence, based on various assumptions (running monte carlo simulations, essentially); and
Again, we do that here, and probably better than any Monte-Carlo analysis.
(8) once I retire, will formulate and help me to implement a tax efficient withdrawal strategy. I feel more comfortable retiring early knowing that I have some guidance and advice, and a professional who tells me that I can do it at a certain level and that he will guide me through to make sure I don't screw it up...
OK, but if this is needed, why pay every year for it? Pay someone by the hour to do the specific analysis you need/want.
How does one evaluate an FA to know if they are giving good advice? At the minimum, I'd want to have a reference plan for comparison (so I'd need to do the 'work' to develop that plan). Otherwise, it just seems to me that you are taking all theses unknowns, and putting them onto another unknown, and now feeling better about it. But I wouldn't, I'd worry about the FA instead of worrying about my investments! It's just shifting the unknown.
Perhaps at your high wealth stage, some help makes sense, but I would not pay an FA year in year out for it. Hire the help you need, when you need it.
-ERD50