Financial Disclaimers

When you write about financial matters, promote financial products or sell goods or services that relate to the financial field, people may believe reading your content or buying your goods/services will result in them having a guaranteed level of financial success. Clearly this isn't the case.

A financial disclaimer can limit your responsibility if something goes wrong or expectations of the user aren't met. You may be legally required to use a financial disclaimer.Even if you aren't, it can make sense to have one.

Here's what you need to know about what financial disclaimers are, what information they include, how to create one, and how to display one.

What is a Financial Disclaimer?

A disclaimer is a statement that limits your legal responsibility, often by making clear that the reader instead bears responsibility for their actions. A financial disclaimer does this in the context of information that the reader may take into account when making investment or other financial decisions.

A financial disclaimer could cover any points which are important to stress to avoid the reader making incorrect assumptions, either about the consequences of their decisions or who bears responsibility for these consequences.

While the specific content can vary, the most important financial disclaimers cover two key points:

• The content, goods or services you provide are not financial advice
• Investing carries risks and the investor bears this risk on his own

We'll explore these points in more detail and give examples later in this guide.

Are You Legally Required to Have a Financial Disclaimer?

In the United States, having a legal disclaimer is usually a choice to protect yourself rather than a legal requirement.

The main situation when you legally must have a disclaimer is if you are a regulated financial professional. You need to distinguish between when you are giving specific financial advice to an individual (which is a regulated activity) and when you are merely giving general information. For example, you may be regulated under the Investment Advisers Act.

In this situation, when you provide advice to a paid client to cover their specific needs, you are legally giving financial advice. A disclaimer that the information you provide is not financial advice would have no force.

However, other circumstances, such as writing an article on your website, may not come under the regulations. In this case, a disclaimer can stress the information is not designed as financial advice. This removes any misconception by readers who may assume otherwise.

The rules differ when you are directly promoting a financial product such as an investment. For example, the SEC requires disclaimers when you detail past performance or portray potential future performance.

Beyond this, financial disclaimers are a practical rather than legal requirement. Not having adequate disclaimers could lead to costly legal cases brought by readers who claim they lost money by following your advice or by you not giving them sufficient information or warnings.

Note that the relevant laws may vary in other countries.

Who Should Have a Financial Disclaimer?

Anyone who writes about, promotes, discusses or shares any sort of product, service or content that has to do with anything financial should have a financial disclaimer.

This includes stock market analysis bloggers, financial coaches, investment strategists, wealth management bloggers, etc.

Finance doesn't have to be the sole focus of your site for a financial disclaimer to provide benefits. Even if you only have one or two financial blog posts or products for sale, a financial disclaimer should be added to the relevant blog posts and product pages.

What Should You Include in a Financial Disclaimer?

As we've noted, financial disclaimers largely center on your information not being financial advice and investing carrying risk. These broad principles can cover several specific elements that you should include in your disclaimer if they are relevant to your case.

Not Financial Advice

Rather than simply say you aren't giving financial advice, you can go into more detail to further reduce the risk of the reader making a false assumption. A good disclaimer will balance giving specific examples and making clear these are not exhaustive. Points you could cover include:

• You are not recommending or endorsing any product, business or investment decision
• You are not giving information specifically tailored to the individual's needs or situation
• You do not have a financial or professional relationship with the reader

For an added layer of protection you could make it a condition of using your website or accessing your information that the reader agrees not to hold you liable for any decisions they make on the basis of the information you provide.

The London Stock Exchange makes clear that even if the reader interprets content as a form of advice, it does not constitute financial advice:

Laura Meihofer makes clear that she is neither a financial advisor nor giving financial advice:

Professional Financial Solutions' core business is offering regulated financial advice to paid clients. It uses a disclaimer to make clear this professional relationship does not extend to its blog and readers:

Ladies Finance Club points out that its information is not based on the reader's personal circumstances and is general in nature, which helps readers understand that it is not direct financial advice but rather just information:

SME Finance Forum explicitly points out it does not offer regulated financial advice:

Investing Carries Risk

Remind people that there is a risk in any financial activities, and that they alone carry this risk.

Points you can make include:

• You may lose some or all of the money you invest. (With some financial activities, such as short selling, it's possible to lose more than you originally invested. Mention this if you have addressed these activities.)
• Results are not guaranteed.
• Past performanc (whether by a company, a financial product or a financial advisor) is neither a guarantee nor a prediction of future results.
• Examples of future performance are hypothetical and only for illustration. They do not mean that you, or any other individual, will get such results.

Aninvestor covers both the risk of loss and the lack of guarantee of future results:

Investing With Options starts its disclaimer with some very direct warnings about risk:

Tradeciety explains a specific risk that goes beyond the usual risk of losing your entire investment and even more:

FINRA explains a limitation on its example projections, stating that they are hypothetical and may not reflect the actual growth of the investments of the end user:

Hypebeast disclaims liability for any actions readers take based on its content, reminding users that they take sole responsibility for the financial risks:

How Do You Display a Financial Disclaimer?

To be legally effective, your financial disclaimer must be prominent and as close as possible to the relevant text, product or other content that can be considered to be financial advice.

If your financial disclaimer is short, you can include it in full alongside the text (such as an article or blog post) to which it applies. If the text is relatively short, the disclaimer can go at the end. If the text is longer, it may be safer to put the disclaimer at the start in case people don't read the entire text.

If your financial disclaimer is longer, you can link to it in several ways from the text including:

• A pop-up window that displays the disclaimer
• A link to a dedicated webpage for that disclaimer and any others you may have
• Within a Terms agreement, such as Terms and Conditions or Terms of Use

If you do have a dedicated page for your disclaimer (and any other legal information), make it prominent by also including a link in your navigation system such as a footer menu. This helps make it visible from every page of the site, ensuring people can read it easily, and will notice it effortlessly.

Here's how Ortec Finance includes a Disclaimer link in its footer menu, under a Legal heading, and alongside other important links:

Here's how Nutmeg adds a "not investment advice" warning in prime position on the homepage of its blog. This makes it clear that every piece of content on the blog is not to be taken as official financial advice:

Nutmeg also has a risk warning at the bottom of every page on the site, with a link to more information about what the risks may be:

Make sure to display your financial disclaimer in a way that it's easily visible and accessible for it to reach the most people and be most effective.

Summary

A financial disclaimer is a usually-short statement that lets the reader know that whatever you are offering by way of content, products or services is not to be taken as financial advice, and that risks will come with any sort of financial endeavor. The financial disclaimer offers both a warning to readers and a way to limit your responsibility for any decisions they make.

If you are a regulated financial organization or advisor, a financial disclaimer may be needed to make clear when you are not providing regulated finance advice. In most other cases, you aren't legally required to use a financial disclaimer, though it's usually a bad idea not to do so if you have any sort of financial content on your site, or anything that may possibly be deemed as such.

A financial disclaimer can cover two main points. First, you should make it clear that you are not providing financial advice, meaning readers should make their own financial decisions rather than rely on what you've said. That you are simply providing information.

You should also make it clear that financial decisions involve risk, including the potential to lose some or all of the money invested, and that you are not responsible for any such risks.

Display financial disclaimers prominently and close to the information or products that could be seen as financial advice, such as at the start of every blog post of a financial nature.

Add a financial disclaimer clause to your existing Terms agreement, such as your Terms and Conditions agreement. If you have a separate webpage on your site where your financial disclaimer sits, link to it within your site's footer so it's easily accessible from every page of the site.