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Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Protected Rights Legislation Changes

A small change ...

From 1 October, the government will widen the choice for how you manage your retirement funds. If you have ever contracted out of the State Second Pension (S2P) or the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS), you could benefit.

Previously, the money built up from contracting out (known as Protected Rights) had to be paid into a personal or stakeholder pension. From 1 October, Protected Rights can be paid into a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), which has advantages in certain circumstances.

...that could make a big difference to future income.

There are new opportunities that you should consider for your Protected Rights money. For example, you could use a proportion of a SIPP to:

- Seek access to a far wider range of funds than many of the old schemes offer.
- Build in guarantees capable of protecting your income or death benefits.
- Use your funds to contribute towards self selected investment or direct investment in commercial property via a SIPP.

The current stock market turmoil demonstrates the value of protecting your future retirement income, while keeping your funds invested. It also provides a very sound reason for reviewing any existing arrangement.

Secure your income. Take more control of your retirement savings.

With the legal changes and new products on the market, now's an ideal time to review your retirement planning arrangements. So contact our financial services team on 02890 329042 and we'll explain the options you have for your Protected Rights funds.

Monday, 22 September 2008

Dealing With Turmoil in World Markets

Market conditions

In respect of market conditions, we are in a storm rather than a seasonal change. When conditions or circumstances move more gently you can fine tune your arrangements to suit steady change. When dramatic and unpredictable conditions occur fine tuning no longer works, but more radical reactive changes are just as likely to do damage as good. For some investors the current conditions may even present opportunities.

How this affects your investment values

You should have funds invested in line with your attitude to risk and spread across a mixture of assets including, cash, gilts, bonds, property and shares. Each of these broad classes may be further sub-divided. It is certain in the current conditions some of these assets have fallen in value. Conversely, some have held their value or grown. Longer term investors also have built in protection due to the compound returns already achieved over time.

How safe is my investment?

Safety is affected on two levels. Firstly, market risk determines how values move. In the event of a particular company share or other type of asset held as a component of a collective investment becoming devalued or insolvent your investment value may be affected. Collective investments are generally spread amongst many different individual assets and this reduces the potential impact of the failure of any one.

Secondly, financial risk may affect the solvency of the fund manager, life company, bank or investment provider. This risk is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme offering varying levels of protection against total failure of such institutions.

Generally, each investor will have a level of protection associated with each recognised regulated third party they have invested with. Investors with larger sums invested with any one institution may wish to seek advice about their position in respect of this important protection and we can explain this to you.

What should I do now?

In many instances there is nothing you should do immediately for some of the reasons given above. If your circumstances have changed since the last time you reviewed your investments, you could consider a review to ensure the existing arrangements are still appropriate for your objectives.

If you feel the risks detailed above in respect of over exposure of funds to any one bank/life company/investment house might apply to you, feel free to contact us to discuss this further.

We review the investment vehicles we employ on a regular basis and we do this so we have better control of your assets and where they are invested. We believe this will benefit you because it makes it easier for us to monitor the affairs of all our clients, especially in difficult times like these. If your investments are affected by any of the proposals for change currently under consideration we will contact you separately.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns arising from the situation surrounding us all at the moment.

Labels: Investments, Market Turmoil