Daniel Costa
Financial advisor in Sydney. I use AI to help explain complex concepts to clients in plain language. Game changer for client relationships.
📬 linkedin.com/in/danielcosta
Stories by Daniel Costa
I used AI to understand my mortgage before signing
First home buyer here. The loan documents were 47 pages. My broker explained things but I couldn't retain it all and felt embarrassed asking the same questions twice. After the meeting I typed everything I remembered into Claude — the loan terms, the rate, the offset account structure, the fees — and asked it to explain the real cost of the loan over 30 years, what the offset account actually saves me, and what questions I should have asked but didn't. That last question was the most useful. It flagged that I hadn't asked about rate lock during settlement, early repayment fees, or whether the comparison rate included all fees. I went back to my broker with those specific questions. One of them led to me getting a better deal. Reading the documents yourself isn't enough if you don't know what to look for.
I'm about to sign a mortgage. Here are the key terms: [interest rate, loan term, fees, offset account details]. Can you: 1) explain what this actually costs over the life of the loan, 2) explain how the offset account works in dollar terms, 3) list important questions I should ask my broker before signing.
Read full prompt →Explaining complex financial concepts to clients used to be the hardest part of my job
I'm a financial adviser. The technical knowledge is one thing. Explaining a complex structure like a testamentary trust or a transition-to-retirement strategy to someone who's never encountered it before — that's a completely different skill. I used to write these explanations from scratch every time. Or adapt old ones. They were okay but not great. Now I use AI differently. I don't ask it to write the explanation. I ask it to play the role of a confused client and push back on my explanation until I can answer every question clearly. I'll write my explanation of, say, salary sacrificing. Then I paste it in and say "you're a 52-year-old teacher who has no investment background. Ask me every question a confused person would ask about this explanation." The questions that come back are genuinely the questions my clients ask. And by going through them, I end up with a much better explanation — one that pre-answers the confusions before they come up. My client satisfaction scores have gone up. More importantly, my clients are making better decisions because they actually understand what they're agreeing to.
I've written this explanation of [financial concept] for clients: [paste]. Play the role of a confused client with no financial background and ask every question a real person would ask. Be as confused as a real person would be.
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