Analysis from Dynamic Planner, the UK’s leading digital advice platform, of data from its Financial Wellbeing Questionnaire, has found that the overall proportion of clients with high levels of vulnerability has decreased over the past year.
Between 2023 to 2024, Dynamic Planner found 6.26% of clients to be highly vulnerable in terms of their resilience, but in the most recent year from 2024 to 2025, this has dropped to 3.09%, supporting the Financial Lives Survey latest 2024 findings.*
The proportion of clients with moderate vulnerabilities also reduced year on year across the four characteristics**, with more clients being viewed to have a low level of vulnerability. This could indicate that for the more serious issues, clients are receiving welcome support and guidance that has proven reassuring. Again, it supports the FCA’s observations that firms are beginning to make changes to treat vulnerable customers fairly, but there is still room for improvement.
The analysis comes as Dynamic Planner marks the 2nd anniversary of its Financial Wellbeing Questionnaire, originally launched in 2023 to meet the requirements of Consumer Duty, with a raft of changes and enhancements to help advice firms even better understand client needs and differences. Changes include:
- The questionnaire is now even more aligned with key questions and the algorithm of the FCA’s Financial Lives Survey.
- Vulnerability data can now be recorded across the four vulnerability drivers as well as the related characteristics allowing advisers to further explore which factors are leading to client vulnerabilities so they can provide appropriate support.
- Bespoke reports can now be created replaying client responses to all questions along with any useful information or contact details for clients due to their differing vulnerabilities. It also provides firms with the opportunity to explain actions they will take given client needs and requests.
- Fully integrated across the entire Dynamic Planner platform, the questionnaire can be distributed through Fact Find invitations and the results, including a vulnerability status selected by the adviser, can be recorded on the client’s personal dashboard.
Dr Louis Williams, Dynamic Planner’s Head of Psychology and Behavioural Insights said: “At any point in time, a client can be considered vulnerable, whether due to a life event that causes them to become temporarily vulnerable or to a permanent change, for example due to a health condition.
“Driven by Consumer Duty and the FCA’s increasing focus on vulnerable clients, we’ve seen significant levels of adoption over the past two years since launching our Financial Wellbeing Questionnaire, and now in line with adviser feedback, this new version is finetuned to support them even more. Available within our suite of client profiling questionnaires it powers the identification of vulnerabilities with technology, enabling advisers to assess individual clients across four key areas: health, life events, resilience, and capability; record and update a vulnerability status, and configure a report that can be shared with clients.
“Importantly, we give control to the adviser to assess each client and uncover factors the client themselves might not consider as indicative of being in vulnerable circumstances.”
