Nicholls Stevens Financial Services

PROTECTING YOUR ASSETS – PROTECTING YOUSELF

Earlier in the year I wrote an article on the importance of having a plan for your life and fitting your financial plan around this.

One of the aspects of a financial plan is to build up capital or income to enjoy in the future. However, sometimes circumstances dictate that the best laid plans fail, a member of the family may die or someone may no longer be able to earn an income because of long term sickness.

I will cover the matter of long term sickness next month, but this month I want to talk about protecting your assets for others in the event of your death. If you do not have any dependants, then this subject is most probably not a high priority.

Protecting your family

If you do have dependants, you need to ask yourself a question “ How would my family fare if I died tomorrow”. You may have to do some digging in your records to find the answer. The information you are seeking runs along the following lines.

• Do I have a will in place, which is up to date and names the people I want to benefit from my assets?

• Have you named guardians for your children?

• Would the outstanding mortgage on my house be paid off in full at the date of my death by a life assurance policy?

• Would the outstanding mortgages on any buy to let or other properties be paid off in full at the date of my death by life assurance?

• Would a lump of money come to the family from a Death in Service Scheme from my employer? And if so have you completed a nomination form giving the names of the people?

• Would the value of my pension funds be returned to the family?

• Is there additional life assurance in place to replace the loss of one income for the family?

If you need help in putting together this vital information, let us know

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Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Services Authority