ONLINE BESPOKE FINANCIAL PLANNING
How can this service help me?
Taking truly independent financial advice can help you with your financial planning, whether it is to meet a specific aspiration, such as retiring at a certain age or protection of your family through to overall holistic planning of your finances.
The websites now available from Chapters Financial Limited have been specifically designed to allow you to access independent financial advice online, without commission, on a fixed fee basis from the comfort of your computer. We hope you enjoy this direct online service from our independent chartered financial planning company. This is a unique service only offered by Chapters Financial Limited, as IFAs based in Guildford, Surrey.
What about online security of my information?
Chapters Financial Limited understands that this is an important issue. When you start your personal detail submission you will be sent a secure login code to allow you to revisit your submission to get the information finalised. We will not see any information until you are happy to submit your planning request. We are pleased to comply with the Data Protection Act.
What do I get in my individual financial planning report for my fixed fee?
You will have seen the fixed fee scale that is applied for this online planning service and it would be a natural question for you to ask what you should expect to receive for your fee. Therefore, we have built www.yourmoneymadesimple.com as a website to detail what could be covered in your individual financial planning report. This is our virtual ‘showroom’ to ensure that you gain the value of independent financial advice for your needs.
Your report will include some of the following aspects of financial planning. Please be aware that each case and circumstance is different and so therefore the areas detailed below are suggestions of what may be covered. Each case will be treated on an individual and separate basis to ensure that the financial advice recommended is appropriate and relevant to your circumstances, aspirations and needs.
What’s in my financial planning report?
Your Financial Position now
(a) Current Circumstances
At the start of your report, we will confirm your current circumstances as you have provided them in your online submission to ensure that our understanding and knowledge of your current position is correct. When we provide you with your report, we will also send you a copy of your input for a complete picture. We are sure you would agree there is little benefit in providing financial planning advice for the future if we do not fully understand your current circumstances correctly.
The report will cover diverse areas, such as your income, tax position, health (both past and present), family situation and marital status. All of these can have an effect on the final recommendations made.
(b) Wills
It is important for you to have made a will and to keep this updated. We would recommend that you speak to your legal adviser or solicitor if you do not have a will and to ensure that this is maintained.
There are various ways of saving inheritance tax by adjusting your will (such as gifts to Charity) and dependant on the information you provide to us, we may provide you with additional guidance as to how savings can be achieved. We would then refer you to your solicitor, or legal adviser, to take further advice and guidance.
(c) Your Attitude to Investment Risk
Understanding your attitude to risk and the level of volatility that you are prepared to accept with reference to both investments and pensions is vital to ensure that the service and financial advice we offer to you is appropriate.
We have arranged questions in this system for your consideration and completion to ensure that we understand both your existing attitude to risk, along with your future strategy, taking into account your age, risk profile and time until your objective needs to be achieved. Please consider this issue carefully because the recommendations provided by Chapters Financial Limited will be based on the answers that you provide.
(d) Personal Tax Allowances
Many clients are aware of the personal tax allowances that are available to them each year to save the tax charged on their income, investments or savings. These can include as examples, ISA savings, pension contributions, Premium Bonds and the ability to utilise the capital gains tax allowance (CGT Allowance) in each tax year. If advice is required and appropriate, we will take these into account when providing financial advice. We will need to know the actions that you have already taken in this and past tax years to ensure that, where appropriate, tax allowances are used to the best advantage.
With reference to all types of investment, pensions and savings, we would also consider the allocation of the existing and future assets to meet your current attitude to risk.
(e) Loans, Mortgages & Liabilities
We would consider your existing loans & liabilities, including mortgages, to see if it could be appropriate to use other assets or income to ensure that these are repaid as soon as possible to reduce the overall interest costs to you. If you would like mortgage advice then we will refer you to an adviser who specialises in this area of financial advice.
To gain the maximum value from your financial report you must ensure that the information you submit online is correct as our recommendations are based on the information you provide. If this is incorrect, the subsequent advice may not meet your needs.
What you want to consider for your financial planning.
(a) Financial Objectives & Aspirations
This section will highlight your objectives both now and into the future as you have listed them online. We may note additional points for your consideration to make our reporting to you more comprehensive.
The objectives will also cover the appropriate expected timescales and the budget you have selected, if applicable.
(b) Combination of financial planning advice areas
It would be unusual to find one solution to meeting an individual’s financial planning needs. We may find that it is a combination of recommendations that meet your aspirations.
Financial planning advice areas
(a) Inheritance Tax Planning (IHT planning)
There are various ways of saving inheritance tax and it is important to understand the gifts, IHT allowances and potentially exempt transfers (PETs) that you have made in the past and any planned gifts for the future. You may also anticipate an inheritance in the future. This could affect the financial planning advice we provide within your report and needs to be understood before making recommendations with regard to your inheritance tax strategy. This will be encompassed in your report if appropriate. Part of this issue may also be covered by recommendations made in the will section or may cover other areas, such as your surplus income allowance.
(b) Life & Health Protection
Life assurance and health protection can be a vital element of any financial planning to ensure that any aspirations and objectives for your future plans are met. This can include situations such as your inability to work due to ill health, serious illness or the sudden death of a family member. If this is a priority then we will make recommendations to consider either life assurance, health insurance (PHI or Critical Illness protection), or both to protect both you and your family. This will not include advice on areas such as Private Medical Insurance.
We could also comment on placing a life assurance policy in trust to ensure that the proceeds fall outside of your estate in the event of death for inheritance tax purposes and to ensure that your beneficiaries receive funds quickly and without recourse to probate. If you have existing protection, we will need to understand the benefits available and take these into account in our report to you. If existing life policies are not written in trust we may comment on the benefits of doing so, if available.
(c) Pension Planning
Many clients are saving for their retirement and have aspirations to retire at either a specific age or with a certain income, or both. If this is a objective which is of interest to you, we will provide financial advice to you for the funding of pensions to meet any future objectives and will take into account your budget to ensure that this is not exceeded, particularly taking into account your other circumstances and aspirations. We will also provide, where appropriate, advice on the existing pension plans and arrangements to ensure that tax allowances are utilised ( and not exceeded, such as the lifetime allowances (LTA)) to the best advantage and the existing arrangements are working hard whilst invested. You may have also applied for Pension Protection since April 2006 (Pensions ‘A’ day).
The recommendation may include that you check your State pension benefits to ensure that they are up to date and recorded correctly, taking into account your current circumstances.
The information required for your existing pensions is quite lengthy. To provide the correct advice, we will need to understand these plans fully because some policies have unusual and valuable benefits, such as guaranteed annuity rates (GAR’s).
(d) Investment & Savings Planning
Whether you are investing or saving for a specific purpose or just a ‘rainy day’ in the future, good independent financial planning offers great value in ensuring that the plans that you are investing or hope to invest in will meet your future objectives.
Planning is vital to ensure that your aspirations are met and maintained in the future. When you consider the input required by the system, this could take account of the following issues:
Understanding these issues will guide us in providing you with recommendations for your planning.
(e) Retirement Planning
If you have accumulated pension benefits and are now considering drawing these then many questions are generated by this unique occasion and many answers can be provided to ensure that you have peaceful and prosperous retirement. This may include using an Open Market Option (OMO) for your pension fund.
As examples, these would include your attitude to risk and your requirements for provision of spouse’s protection, protection against inflation and your requirement for capital in retirement. This could include taking tax free cash (TFC) to ensure that you enter retirement on a debt free basis. Other information that could affect the financial planning provided is your health circumstances, smoking habits if any and your anticipated longevity. The type of pension fund could also affect your planning advice, such as whether the fund contains Protected Rights (GMP/SERPS/S2P) or Safeguarded Rights.
Your other assets and income will also affect the decisions you make and the recommendations we provide in your financial planning. Your income tax allowance and age allowance will need to be taken into account. This could guide us to provide you with advice on the following options:
Care needs to be taken when considering existing pensions to ensure that issues such as guaranteed annuity rates (GARs) or increases in payment contained within existing policies are checked to ensure that this additional value is utilised if available. This would be encompassed in the report that is provided, subject to receiving all of the correct information.
In addition to this, it would be important to check your state pension benefits to ensure that these are up to date and that you receive the appropriate state pension at the appropriate time. A link to the necessary form to check these benefits (BR19 form) is here. The report could encompass recommendations on this if additional funding is required.
Legislation & Regulation
The information and recommendation that we make to you will be based on our current understanding of UK legislation and regulations. These will take into account the current changes in legislation.
We will also confirm that you have read and understood the following documents at the start of your planning process**:
Key Facts Documents:
**You will be unable to progress your input without having confirmed your viewing of these documents.
Stage 2, Implementation of our recommendations
We hope that you like the recommendations made in your individual independent financial planning report.
If you would like to implement all or part of the recommendations made you can do this yourself or with your own advisers or contacts. Alternatively, we would be pleased to receive your instructions, for an additional fixed fee of £397.00. We do not charge VAT for this service.
Stage 3, Review of your financial planning
It would be appropriate to use our review service on a reasonably regular basis to ensure that the financial planning that has been provided is kept updated. This is available by using stage 3 of our system.
Summary
Remember:
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