We're in a (sort of) similar boat. I'm older, with a similar amount of investments, and I live in Canada (although I'm a US citizen). I think you're right that you're unlikely to get support for paying an AUM fee on this forum. And one note on your fee -- my guess would be that your fee would only drop to .5% for the amount of your investments beyond $2M, and you'd still be paying 1% for the first $2M. That's how it is typically structured.
As a DIY investor, a US citizen, and a Canadian permanent resident, I have had to learn about the US system, the Canadian system, and crossborder implications. At the same time, I recognize that I find this stuff really interesting, and I do a lot of my learning while I'm getting paid to work my "real" job. :) I don't think Canada is particularly complicated, and there are lots of good resources out there (PM me if you're looking for some). For me, the crossborder angle adds a whole other wrinkle, but other than having to do currency exchanges that doesn't seem like an issue for you.
I'm a big believer in the fact that no one is as motivated to take as good care of my assets as I am. At the same time, the same could be said for DIY house projects, and I certainly outsource more of that than some of the folks on here, so you've got to find what works for you.
- Favourable exchange rates. A significant amount of my pay is in USD so this helps quite a bit.
- Tax efficiency. Between RRSPs, TFSAs, RESPs, unregistered accounts, dividends, and capital gains, there is a lot to learn. Worse, it changes often and getting it wrong can cost a lot, decades down the line. Also it's super boring (not a great reason, but I personally don't want to spend my spare time learning about it and keeping up)
- Correctness. Early in my DIY financial management, I made a fairly costly error trying to run Norbert's Gambit. With larger assets these types of mistakes are even costlier.
- Advice on other financial tools. For example HELOCs, estates, trust funds, insurance, wills, etc.
- Access to different funds. While they take a "couch potato" approach, they still have access to different funds that I, a layman, does not. In theory the return from those funds partially offsets the fees.
- Fees are tax deductible, so I get some of it back.
1. Exchange rate - I've done well enough with Wise (formerly Transferwise) and there are better ways (Norbert's Gambit being one of them) if you really want to minimize the fees. Personally, I like the convenience of Wise (and I was paid in USD until last August).
2. Tax efficiency - With your earnings, it should be easy enough to max out both TFSA and RRSP. Personally, I put the things that I expect to gain the most (i.e. stocks) in my TFSA. And because Canada taxes Canadian dividends favourably, I might hold some of these in my non-registered account. At the same time, this stuff is VERY secondary to simply investing. If you don't really want to think about it and just hold the same asset allocation in all your accounts, the differences over time will be pretty negligible.
3. Correctness - It's true, you have to learn some stuff. Norbert's Gambit is (IMO) kind of a pain, though, and totally not necessary. And the rest of it is pretty straightforward. There may be times (an inheritance, moving to another country, nearing retirement) where talking to an advisor with a particular set of questions might make sense, but in my experience, the vast majority of my investing life has been more or less on autopilot and it would hurt my soul to pay $20,000 per year for that.
4. HELOCs are easy, and estate planning will ultimately have to involve a lawyer, and they should be able to tell you about all that stuff. We just engaged a lawyer to put together a crossborder estate plan for us, and it cost $1600.
5. Theoretically advisors could have funds that will do better, but they could also do worse. I don't worry about this at all. There are plenty of great funds available to us laypeople, and you only need a couple anyways.
6. Fees being tax deductible make the advice cheaper, but only you can decide if it's a price you're willing to pay.
Personally, with a wife, a kid and a similar nest egg, I'm getting close to pulling the trigger on retirement. If I had to spend an additional $20,000 per year on a financial advisor, I'd have to delay my retirement significantly.
Studies have shown that the real value add of advisors is behavioral -- they can stop you from panicking when the markets tank, or jumping on something trendy (at least, the good ones would theoretically do this). It doesn't seem like you have any problem with this, though, so for you my guess is that they don't really add any value. Regardless, you're in great shape so I wouldn't worry overly much about it.