Our approach
Your circumstances are unique; hence any financial plan, particularly a retirement plan, must be tailored to reflect your individual needs and should be flexible enough to evolve to take into account your changing circumstances.
To ensure that your retirement plan will meet your requirements, as a quality independent financial planner we will take you through the following systematic process:
Assembling your financial information
The complexity of your financial affairs will vary substantially according to your stage in life, marital status, and relationship with your family or stage in career. We will help you to gather all the relevant information for the planning process.
Establishing and agreeing financial objectives
To prepare a comprehensive retirement plan, you will need to look beyond your current situation. It is very important to establish your future intensions, goals and ideals and we will help you to establish realistic measurable financial objectives and list them in order of priority. It is also important to determine your attitude to making investments, in terms of risk and time frames or even ethics.
Processing and analysing the information
Having obtained all the necessary information and assessed your objectives, we , as your financial advisor, will prepare:
- A review of your current financial position setting out what you own, and what you owe. From this you can work out your net worth – i.e. your assets less your liabilities.
- A review of all your existing pension plans and investments to check whether they are still competitive.
- A cash flow statement setting out your regular income and outgoings to confirm whether there is surplus income to invest or a need to supplement your income out of assets.
Constructing a comprehensive plan with recommendations
Taking your financial objectives into account, we will then consider whether your existing assets need to be reviewed and help you decide which investment products are appropriate to meet your needs. The plan is likely to include a schedule of your assets, liabilities liquidity and future inheritances, together with a statement of your current financial and cash flow position. This will give you a comprehensive overview of your current situation, taking into account your position in relation to tax liability.
The plan will also summarise any recommendations and actions, which we feel you, will need to consider if you are to meet your financial goals and objectives.
We will consider a range of issues such as:
- The event of disability and death
- Provision for retirement – including a review of any shortfall that may be identified in your retirement income, with suggestions for how the gap can be bridged
- Investment needs and options to maximise their yield
- Estate planning – looking at Inheritance Tax liabilities and how these can be mitigated as best as possible. We will also look at how any family inheritance impacts on your plans.
- Personal borrowings – reviewing the financial efficiency of any existing mortgages or loans
All illustrations and quotations must comply with the relevant regulatory requirements and provide clear explanations of purpose and features.
Implementing the recommendations and the plan
Once the planning process is complete, should you find there are changes you wish to implement or financial products you wish to investigate further, we will assist you to source an implement these changes, guiding you every step of the way and co-ordinating the preparation of any relevant materials. You will receive a full documented summary of any actions implemented so that it can be used as a source of reference in the future.
Reviewing and updating the plan
As with any financial plan, your personal retirement plan will need to be reviewed and updated over time. How regularly this is done will depend on your need, but generally it is best to do this annually. A review should take into account any changes in your circumstances, for example a change of job, a new addition to the family, inheritances, as well as changes as a result of legislation, in particular taxation. As a trusted financial advisor ,you can turn to us for advice and assistance at any point in redefining your objectives and your plan.
You will be able to access up to date valuations 24/7 via our website through our client management information system.