Your LifeTalk Insider #90

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Welcome back…

From LifeTalk and the Adviser Growth Community this week:

Thanks to everyone who has subscribed to LifeTalk Insider - Let’s get stuck in…

Philip and 124 others: Without saying your age, say something that a young person simply will not understand... Click…

LifeTalk member and 47 others:  One of my colleagues earns pretty much £100,000 (PAYE) and has just inherited. He has about £500k in cash which he wants to spend on a property purchase in about 6 months to a year. He has already used his ISA and premium bonds, pension is not an option - he needs to buy the house.

I have been discussing with him buying a gilt (T26A) which ends 22/10/2026 and is below par (£0.955). The yield to redemption seems to be about 4% and, since most of it is capital gain will be largely tax free. If he puts it in a savings it'll be 60% income tax so a 4% account only nets him 1.6%!

Asides the danger of a significant move in interest rates (and the duration is short) what are the risks? He's an FS professional so he'll do it on a retail platform but I was struggling with real material reasons not to do it. Any thoughts or things I should bring to his attention? Pretty scary writing out a 'cheque' for £500k! Click…

Jane and 30 others: Sad news today- one of my new clients just died after selling his business and becoming a millionaire. He had been waiting for life saving surgery. In the short time we knew him, we managed to get him to marry and put in place a Will and Will trust so his family are not having to pay huge IHT bill now. It was in the nick of time and as a fall back position.

Sitting here feeling so sad for his family but relieved that we pushed him to do this even when he was determined he would survive the surgery and be fine. And thinking about how to talk to a lovely lady who married and then became a widow within 3 weeks!

A reminder of how important our job really is. Read more…

Louise and 38 others: As there currently seems to be a mass exodus to Dubai. I would advise any clients moving out to look for a DIFC based advisor. We work under very strict regulation to protect clients and in my opinion more so than the U.K. who I have worked under for over 25 years. Click…

Philip: Last week was Vulnerability Week. The Collaboration Network started the initiative in 2024 and this year it focused on helping businesses create stronger, more empathetic connections with customers who have additional needs.

The goal is to guide businesses in cultivating trust through transparency, empathy and understanding, ensuring that vulnerable customers feel respected and supported at all touchpoints.

Of course, we know that this is a crucial part of the work financial advisers do with clients.

For anyone looking at ways to support the way they work with vulnerable clients, we have an online questionnaire/scorecard tool that financial advisers can use with clients to assess potential signs of vulnerability. It can be customised with your branding and edited to match your house style.

If you would like to take a look and test it, send me a DM via LinkedIn, or send an email to [email protected].

Andrew and 42 others: What are folks thoughts on Unbiased? It’s now approved for us to use. Seems quite expensive, but if the leads are actually decent then fine. My last experience with it was when it was pretty much free and you just got a stream of very variable quality enquiries. Click…

Brad and 36 others: Are solicitors allowed to refer to restricted advisers? It was my understanding that under the solicitors regulation authority they had to refer to an IFA. Click…

Philip and 26 others: Any consensus on what age clients stop taking holidays in their cashflow forecasts? I have been using 90, but my Dad just got back from a cruise at the age of 95! I think he's an outlier (and I hope I have his genes) but interested to know what age other people run holidays to. Click…

Darren and 25 others: I'm looking to transfer some clients away from Royal London due to their increasing sloppy admin. Submitted a few over the last week, one has gone through the others nothing is happening and no updates on Origo. So we called them today.

Seems that all transfers of Income Release plans have to be done manually and they have a back log. As at this morning they were processing requests submitted on the 20th of May. Looks like I'm not the only one transferring clients away. At least I have a perfect example to the clients now of why we are transferring.

As for Consumer Duty, yet again it doesn't seem to apply to providers only us poor schmucks. Click…

Darren and 27 others: Well this is a new one on me and I'm struggling to figure it out.

Client has a pension with now Phoenix Life, policy details requested and they have sent an illustration as part of that. showing projected fund values at age 75. So far so normal except... Read more…

Mark and 5 others: If someone is in local authority funded care due to cash balance being below £23,250 when assessed, but bank balance increases above the threshold, are they then expected to self fund? Click…

Taylor and 24 others: Any ideas? My client usually tops up 60k p/y into his pension via his ltd co and has for last 2 years. He has some more money this year and wants to do 100k (using carry forward). He has the allowance to carry forward for this by the way. However, he has expressed that he may do this purely so he can then take a PCLS and get some of the money back in his pocket.

So in essence, instead of taking a dividend of the extra 40k,, he is planning to put it through the pension via employer contribution and then crystallise it out. Aside from the obvious planning considerations and issues with that, would HMRC allow this or deem this to somehow be wrong? I am purely talking about the HMRC aspect of doing this and the contribution being deemed fine/not fine. Click…

Kevin and 22 others: Hi everyone,

I’ve recently joined this group and I’m looking for some practical advice from fellow advisers. I’m a newly qualified adviser, who has been advising for 3 months. I’ve been building my client base over the past 3 months, and like most starting out, I’ve mainly relied on close personal friends and family to get things moving. That has more or less run dry, and I’m now at the point where I’m thinking, Do I message everyone I know? (Old school friends/ex-colleagues etc etc)

My practice currently provides around 2 leads a month through social media, which I’m grateful for but I’m conscious that it’s not enough to build any real momentum long-term.

I’m now exploring other options like: Read more…

Nick and 17 others: What is the general consensus from the group regarding iht planning with unused pensions...

Are we waiting until we know 100% that unused pensions will be within the iht net before we do anything? Are there still to many unknowns at this point to be able to plan effectively? Click…

Toby and 24 others: Cashflow assumptions - thoughts welcome. Now that I am working for myself after years as an employed adviser, I am revisiting every part of my process with a fresh lens. I have always been the type to question everything and strip things back to their core. Cashflow is no different.

Two areas are on my mind. First, investment growth assumptions: I have always used 3% inflation and nominal 5% return/growth on investments net of fees with no adjustment for asset allocation. It has been described as conservative. The reasoning being clients would rather overshoot than fall short.

But is it really conservative for everyone? Read more…
 

From the Adviser Growth Community:

News from the Adviser Growth Community

👉 We now have a map feature in the group so that you can see where other members are located. Why not arrange impromptu meetups?

👉 We now pay you for introducing new paying members to the group - that’s 40% affiliate payment to you.

👉 The group has a Calendar feature so that you can keep up to date on our own and industry events.

👉 The Classroom area of the group has hundreds of hours of fantastic content.

👉 You can filter posts within the group by topic, making it incredibly easy to find posts of interest to you.

👉 There’s no algorithm that decides which posts you see!

👉 You can now get a 7 day free trial when you join Adviser Growth Community - come and check us out before you subscribe.

👨‍💼 🙋‍♀️ Here’s why financial advisers like you are joining Adviser Growth Community

The Adviser Growth Community - brings together financial advisers experiencing change or transition in their business so that they can gain clarity whilst also attracting more of their ideal clients.

👉 Now with a 7 day free trial.

If that’s you, you should come and join us…

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