Volatile stock markets mean many investors around the world, including Asia's high-net-worth, are concerned about their exposure to loss-making vehicles.
Some are reading the fine print in their investment contracts after hearing news of investors who lost millions of dollars in complex financial instruments that turned sour.
Over the past few months, investors have been reassessing risk in their portfolios, questioning if their investments are sound and can withstand the market turmoil.
'What's happening is that it made them reassess the relationship between risk and return. Whereas until the end of last year people were riding on a false sense of optimism about risk of return,' Melanie Nutbeam, director of international financial planning at ipac, said.
Investors and their financial advisers were re-evaluating risk tolerance to match their investment goals - whether it was a comfortable retirement, their children's education or wealth preservation for the next generation.
James Sun, managing director of Charles Schwab Hong Kong, said: 'When people come to me and say, 'I feel uncomfortable about my portfolio', I ask how uncomfortable they feel. They say, 'I can't sleep at night.' And I will right there tell them, 'You're taking too much risk'. I call that the sleeping indicator. It's time for you to rebalance and trim your portfolio and get into a less risky asset allocation.'