An annual review should not be a performance update with biscuits. Done well, it is the one meeting a year where the whole plan is re-tested against your life.
Ask most people what their annual review covers and they will describe a performance update: how the investments did, over coffee. That is the least important part.
A review worth having starts with what has changed in your life, not your portfolio. A new grandchild, a business that grew or shrank, a health event, a change of mind about when to stop working. These are the things that move a plan. The numbers are downstream of them.
From there, the work is to re-run the cashflow model against the year that actually happened, check that the tax position still makes sense after any legislative changes, confirm the risk being taken is still the right amount, and redraw the 3Ls if life has shifted the balance between liquidity, lifestyle and legacy. Performance is reported, but in the context of the plan, not as the headline.
The value of an annual review is not reassurance that markets went up. It is the discipline of pointing the whole arrangement, once a year, back at the life it is meant to serve. That is the meeting we protect.