The Awards, which are organised by Good Returns, have two main goals.

They are designed to promote financial planning to the public, and to encourage financial planners to aspire towards excellence and professionalism.

Awards organiser Philip Macalister says now is an ideal time to show the public the benefits of using a financial planner.

"Investors have enjoyed nearly a decade of unprecedented double digit returns thanks to a long-running bull market in the United States."

However, the past 12 months have been particularly tough for investors, and many have experienced losses.

Macalister says in times like this advisers can make sure their clients have suitably structured portfolios to weather the storm,

"Any one can make money when markets are going up," he says. "The difficult part is how to preserve value when markets are falling."

"Financial planners play an incredibly important role helping get their clients through the tough time with as little damage as possible," he says.

The Awards are also designed to reward financial planners for setting high standards.

"Because the business of financial planning is unregulated it is vitally important to show the public the public what best practice is," Macalister says.

New Zealand is fortunate that it has a high quality financial planning industry that is relatively free of scandal.

The problems that arise are in most cases related to people putting money directly into shonky offshore schemes.

"If these people had used a professional financial planner they wouldn't have lost all their capital," Macalister says.