FINANCIAL SERVICES

We all have goals, dreams, ambitions for the future, for ourselves and our families, but how do we achieve them?

Professional Financial Planning is the process which aims to help you realise your ambitions – whatever they may be. As professional financial advisers we can help you make informed decisions about your financial future, short, medium and long term.

You will almost certainly have plans of one kind or another – buying a home, starting a family, living abroad, perhaps retiring, but such ambitions have financial implications and you can’t leave it all to chance. Careful planning aims to help turn your plans into reality and the sooner you start your financial planning the greater your chance of realising your goals.

You can rest assured that we will provide you with expert financial advice plus regular reviews and evaluations of your financial plan.

Financial Planning can:

• Help to increase the value of your savings & investments in a tax efficient manner

• Protect yourself and your dependants’ income in case of unforeseen problems

• Increase the after-tax legacy you pass on to your beneficiaries.

In a perfect world everyone would live to be a 100, no one would ever suffer an illness or lose their job, but unfortunately as we all know life very rarely works out like this, and therefore should misfortune strike it’s important that you and your family are protected financially so that your plans for the future are not affected.

• Life Assurance – If you die unexpectedly, this provides a cash lump sum or income for the people who depend on you. There are two main types of life insurance: whole-of-life insurance and term assurance

• Whole-of-Life insurance pays out an agreed lump sum whenever you die.

• Term Assurance is usually the cheaper of the two as it pays out the agreed lump sum only if you die within the term you’ve agreed. Once the term has ended, you get nothing.

• Mortgage protection insurance is a type of term assurance where the amount of cover decreases over the term of the policy. It is usually designed to tie in with the outstanding amount on a repayment mortgage.

• Family income benefit is a type of term insurance, which pays out an income (rather than a lump sum) for the rest of the term.

• Critical Illness – This pays out a lump sum if you’re diagnosed with a critical illness. All critical illness policies cover a standard 23 illnesses including cancer, strokes and heart attacks with most covering additional illnesses. This lump sum could be used to pay for specialist medical treatment, to pay off your mortgage or for anything else.

• Income Protection – Also known as permanent health insurance (PHI).It replaces part of your income if you are unable to work for a long time because of illness or disability. It continues to pay out until you return to work, die or the policy term expires, whichever happens first.

  

We don’t adopt a ‘one size fits all attitude’ as some of the direct providers seem to, we prefer to tailor our advice specifically to you and your family’s individual needs.

Therefore, we believe in face to face advice so that we can explain all the different types of protection plans available. What’s more, as we are independent financial advisers you can rest assured that you will be getting the most competitive insurance policy in the marketplace whatever your needs so that you and your family can sleep at night, safe in the knowledge that should the very worst happen your family’s finances won’t be thrown off course.

Your mortgage is probably the largest financial transaction and commitment you are likely to undertake. Surely then you should seek mortgage advice which is individually tailored to your needs and requirements?

The credit crunch, which started in 2007, dried up the supply of mortgage finance with some specialist lenders being driven out altogether. Now there are a smaller number of mortgage lenders that have increased their hold over the market for new UK home loans.

The lending community itself has undergone dramatic change, with many lenders either merging or ceasing lending altogether. Fewer lenders means less competition, and those lenders still in the market have only limited amounts to lend, so they aren’t competing so hard with each other if borrowers do not have a substantial deposit.

Lenders have become much more careful about who they lend to, and on what terms.

We look at your mortgage not only as a loan to buy your home, but as part of your overall financial profile, in order that it ties in with your intended retirement date, when you plan to start a family and when you wish to move home.

We are not tied to any particular lender, which means that we have the ability to act on your behalf, representing your best interests, in order to establish the most appropriate mortgage solution for you.

Based on the information you provide in your meeting with our adviser (it is essential that you provide truthful and up to date information), we will search the mortgage market reviewing the lenders available, some of which offer exclusive products to brokers such as ourselves, to determine which lender will offer you the most attractive mortgage options suited to your particular requirements.

One of our mortgage experts will then contact you to discuss your enquiry, source the products on your behalf, answer any queries you may have and provide you with any further information you may require.

They can advise you on:

 

• Repayment

• Interest Only

• Part of your Pension Plan

• First Time Buyers

• Remortgaging

• Buy To Let

• Commercial

• Equity Release

Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

Do you fancy the idea of living on just over £100 per week when you retire? *

That’s pretty much the prospect unless you make additional pension arrangements either by setting up a personal pension or by being part of a company scheme.

Before seeking advice on pension provision it’s worth getting the basics straight first.

Why do I need a Pension?

When you retire you still need food and shelter as an absolute minimum, but of course you will want to maintain the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed, so unless you can guarantee a large inheritance or windfall, then you need to provide yourself with a secure income for the rest of your life.

A pension plan requires action as soon as possible, so start now and if you have already started, take the opportunity to have a closer look at your existing arrangements to make sure you are on track.

How much am I going to need for my retirement?

The answer to this, of course, depends on your aspirations – what will you want to do? What will the costs of day to day living be for me (and my partner) in retirement? What else will I want to do now I have time on my hands? What expenses will disappear e.g. children, mortgage repayments etc.

Once you come up with a figure, add in an amount as a buffer against the unforeseen and unexpected. Now you will have arrived at the amount of pension that you should ideally be planning for. Also bear in mind that pensions are taxable, so you will need to allow for income tax when arriving at your final pension figure.

I already have a pension so I’ll be fine won’t I?

It is very important that you review the benefits of your scheme and the status of your personal plan to establish if it is on track to give you the pension you want. If you are in an employer’s scheme you should be able to obtain a statement from your employer outlining the scheme benefits. Alternatively, contact us and we can analyse your current provisions and make any recommendations to achieve your goals.

For a personal pension, the level of contributions you have been making to your scheme, investment performance and charges will determine the size of your pension, however, as the years go by your fund will increase and could eventually get to a size where the investment returns come into play. The larger your fund, the more advice you may need on managing the fund for optimum performance, because every percentage point increase or decrease could potentially represent thousands of pounds.

We will be pleased to regularly assess your benefits to establish whether they will meet your objectives, and make appropriate recommendations to you.

What type of Pension should I have?

There is no simple answer as this depends on your employment status e.g. self-employed, employed or director, and the benefits that are available through your employer’s scheme if there is one.

We can also advise you on:

* Based on the current single person pension of 2012 / 2013

A pension is a long term investment. Your eventual income may depend on the size of the fund at retirement, future interest rates and tax legislation. The value of your investment and income from it is not guaranteed it can go down as well as up due to fluctuations in investment markets, and you may not get back the full amount invested.

Levels and bases of and reliefs from taxation are subject to change and their value depends on the individual circumstances of the investor.