Click or tap on the titles below to find out what we will talk about.
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Your Objectives
- We’ll find out why you are reviewing your defined benefit pension now and whether a specific event has triggered this. We’ll also clarify when you are looking to retire and assess whether you are looking for guarantees from your pension. What you want to happen to your pension when you die and the ‘shape’ of retirement income you would like will be considered, too. If you want flexibility, we can explore the elements of flexibility that you find important.
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Your Finances
- We’ll ask for details of your current assets and liabilities, including any savings and investments, and all the pension schemes you are a member of. These play a key part in your overall financial planning.
- We’ll also need your partner or spouse’s financial details, because their circumstances and financial arrangements may affect any advice that we give to you. If you have shared household expenditure, usually you’ll both need to consider your retirement plans too.
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Your Income and Outgoings
- We’ll review your current and expected future household income and outgoings. We use the Expenditure Form we ask you to complete in advance as part of this. It’s worth checking the current expenditure figures you give us against the amount you’ve actually spent in recent months as we’ve found it’s common for people to underestimate this.
- Your expenditure in retirement can be difficult to estimate, but we can work it out based on your current expenditure, discounting costs that won’t be there when you retire, such as your mortgage.
- In fact, anticipating your retirement expenditure is crucial to the advice we give you. So, we will need to spend a bit of time on this during our discussion, getting as much detail as possible.
- All potential sources of retirement income are important. That’s why we ask you to get a State Pension Forecast for you and any partner or spouse that lives with you.
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Your Priorities
- We’ll talk about the type of retirement you’d ideally like and the wider financial objectives that are most important to you.
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Your Changing Needs In Retirement
- The amount of income you’ll need and where you might look to get it from can change during retirement and we’ll explore this with you.
- For instance, as you get older, your income needs might increase or decrease. Your plans in early retirement could be very different from your plans in later life.
- When it comes to sources of income you may receive a future capital sum through downsizing property, selling a business or perhaps an inheritance (although this won’t usually be in your control). Any income from part-time work and sources that start at a particular age (like the State Pension) will be relevant too.
- You might not know yet exactly what will happen and when for you during retirement, but it’s important you give some thought to changes that might affect your financial position during these years.
- We’ll use the information you give us to build a Cash Flow Model for you. This will project your future income and outgoings to estimate whether you’ll be able to meet your outgoings throughout your anticipated retirement, setting the context for the advice we’ll give.
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Your Risk Factors
- We’ll discuss the level of risk that you’re prepared to and able to take with your pension, based on your answers to our Attitude to Risk Questionnaire. Risk means different things to different people, and there are several different types of risk to consider too.
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Your Health
- We ask about any health issues you or your spouse have. That’s because this could affect the advice we give you. For example, with some types of financial product we might consider, having health issues can actually mean you get better terms.
If you have any queries about the points we will discuss then get in contact with us by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
