Friday the 13th

They say it’s unlucky for some.

It was for my uncle.

On Friday 13th April, aged only 61 years he suffered a heart attack which brought his life to a premature end. This photo was taken just after the funeral.

I spoke about insurances in my last blog and the need to ensure you review policies on a regular basis. I had planned to talk about a completely unrelated subject on this blog but… life happens!

61 is so young. We all know that life expectancy is increasing significantly and most of us (even if in the back of our mind) have an idea on what we want our retirement to look like. Life expectancy in the UK has increased from an average of 74 years in 1980 to 82 years today (figures from The World Bank). The downside to living longer though is that we need a bigger pot of money to last our longer retirement.

Therefore, it is important that we plan and save to build the lifestyle we want in the future – but life often happens when you’re not looking! Unfortunately some of us, like my uncle, will not make it.

True financial planning is therefore a balancing act – we need to save for our futures but if you don’t protect your income, you are limiting what your future income could do for you. Or for the life you want for your loved ones if you take the exit ramp earlier than you had planned.

A client of mine had her life turned upside down. Her husband died leaving her with 2 young children. I did not arrange the original cover, but following his death she was seeking advice and met with me. She was concerned she had no life insurance (all the policies previously arranged were joint and paid out on the death of her husband). She was concerned about her children and the impact on them if anything happened to her now that she was a single parent.

Their previous life insurance allowed repayment of mortgage and provided additional funds. We invested some of the money to provide:

a) an additional income to replace that which was lost from her husband’s earnings

b) an investment for the children’s future university education.

We also arranged new life cover for her and for the first time she has a critical illness policy following my advice in case anything were to happen to her (more to come on this in my next blog).

It was fortunate that they had the foresight to arrange sufficient cover which allowed me to structure their financial arrangements so that his children and his wife will now financially be able to have the lifestyle that he would have wanted for them.

We all hope that the worst doesn’t happen – we often think about saving for a rainy day, but as mentioned earlier financial planning is a balancing act. We need to plan for those sunny days also. As someone much wiser than I once said: “The trouble is you think you have more time”. The reality is it is never too early to start planning.

If you could benefit from financial planning, feel free to contact me via email or call on 01536 639 007 for a free initial consultation.