It is great news that we are all living longer and enjoying greater health later in life, but longevity has implications on your financial planning. We all need to ensure our savings, whether pensions or other investments, endure throughout our non-working life.
At CWM, we can provide specially tailored advice to alleviate the concerns you or a loved one have regarding the permanency of your pensions and investments. We can assess ways to enhance your income in retirement or protect and grow your capital.
Many of our clients initially approach us with concerns about the cost or other financial implications of long-term care funding. You may be worried about how you will pay care fees when the time comes, or perhaps for a family member such as a parent or spouse.
Perhaps you are motivated to reduce your liability to inheritance tax or want to investigate the benefits of accessing some of the equity in your home, possibly to spend on your own wellbeing, long-term care or to pass a legacy to your beneficiaries whilst still alive.
We often work with attorneys and trustees acting on behalf of someone else. Our role is to manage the trust assets and keep the legal representatives abreast of their options and ensure the best overall financial plan is executed for the beneficiary.
Economic anxieties in later life can span many different facets of financial planning, and we can assess and advise on all aspects, including:
View our Equity Release Service Agreement
As part of our guidance, we seek to support our clients’ understanding of potential challenges that can arise in the future. Inflation is often the core threat to those with fixed income arrangements, particularly during later life. Without achieving any investment return, just 2% inflation per annum would corrode more than 35% of the value of your savings over a 20-year term. Increase inflationary pressures to 3% per annum and the decay intensifies, whereby savings reduce by around 45%.
This becomes an evocative issue when we consider life expectancy for a 65-year-old man is now 18 years, and 21 years for women. With that in mind, and that the average inflation rate since 1989 has been 2.67%, the management of funds in later life becomes a vital component of what we do for our clients.
Whilst we all look forward to a long and healthy retirement, many of us will face the added cost of care in later life and, as life expectancy grows, more of us can expect to require some form of long-term care.
In the UK, the number of those aged over 65 increased by almost a fifth between 2005 and 2015 with the number aged 85 and over increasing by almost a third in the same period; evidence that supports the expectation that more of us may require care during our lifetime. With the average cost of residential care currently estimated at £30,496 per year and £39,520 per year for nursing care, this is a growing concern for all of us. It is estimated that one in four people who fund their own care run out of money because they do not consider all options or fail to take appropriate advice.
The good news is we can help you address these needs and ensure you are making the most of any planning opportunities and tax advantages open to you.
We look forward to assisting with your own or a family member’s later life needs and financial planning.