Moneysworth wins Best Small Protection Advice Firm 2023!
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The 2024 Budget widened the scope of inheritance tax so that, from 2027, the value of any of your pension funds will be counted as part of your estate when it comes to calculating whether you have an inheritance tax (IHT) liability on death.
The inheritance tax threshold in the UK is £325,000 per person. If your estate is valued at lower than this amount, no tax will be payable. Inheritance tax is paid at 40% of the portion of the value of your estate that exceeds this threshold, however, so someone with a £425,000 estate can expect to have an IHT liability of £40,000.
Married couples – but not those in co-habiting arrangements – can pass on their allowance to their spouse or civil partner, so in effect the threshold for a married couple is £650,000.
If you think you may have an estate that exceeds £325,000 as a single person, or £650,000 as a married person, then it’s a good idea to get in touch with Moneysworth’s experienced life insurance advisers to discuss plans to ensure your loved ones aren’t hit with an unexpected and potentially significant bill when you pass away.
In addition to your pension funds, the following will all be included in your estate when it is valued for IHT purposes:
Moneysworth was delighted to be ‘highly commended’ by the judges at the recent COVER Magazine Excellence Awards.
We were especially pleased that our commendation came in the Outstanding Client Engagement category as this means the expert panel have recognised the quality of service we provide to our clients.
During the initial advice process, we always take time to fully explain the level of service we will provide. We then conduct a comprehensive fact finding process to ensure we fully understand your needs, circumstances and overall financial position.
The next step is to research the whole of the protection market to see if there are any life insurance, critical illness insurance and/or income protection products that you would benefit from taking out.
If we make a personal recommendation, we always explain this recommendation in detail via a Suitability Letter, and we ensure that you are provided with all of the relevant product literature for the insurer.
Once any advice process has been concluded, we remain available to answer any questions you might have, or to arrange additional insurance should you require this. For clients with special circumstances, we will contact you every 12 months to conduct a formal annual review, where we will assess whether the policies you hold are still meeting your needs.
You may be aware of the Consumer Duty, which was introduced by our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), on 31st July 2023.
The Consumer Duty places new obligations on financial services firms to take positive actions to ensure they deliver good outcomes for their clients.
Moneysworth wholeheartedly welcomed the introduction of the Duty. We have always been aware of the importance of treating customers fairly.
We have trained all of our advisers on our expectations of them when servicing clients, and all of our advisers undertake regular ongoing training to ensure they remain up-to-date with developments in our industry. We carry out ongoing internal monitoring of the quality of advice we provide.
We see this Highly Commended award from COVER as recognition of the efforts we make to ensure our clients receive excellent outcomes in the new Consumer Duty world.
A recent survey from insurance provider Exeter Friendly shows that 80% of employed people in the UK – equivalent to around 26 million people – prefer to receive professional financial advice before taking out protection products such as life insurance, critical illness insurance or income protection insurance.
Here at Moneysworth, we are well placed to service this demand for advice in this area. Advising on life insurance and other forms of protection is all we do, so we really are experts in this area. Our recent awards successes illustrate that you really will be in safe hands if you approach Moneysworth.
We promise to search the whole of the market to ensure we find the very best product for your needs and your individual circumstances, no matter how complex these might be.
We regularly obtain competitively priced life and health insurance for clients with medical conditions, and we can also find life insurance for people who reside outside of the UK.
We don’t charge a fee for our advice either.
If you are a consumer who is interested in exploring this area, contact us today to see how we can help.
If you work for a financial services firm and have clients with needs in this area, then you can rest assured that your clients will be well looked after if you introduce them to Moneysworth. Again, please contact us to find out more about what we can offer.
If you have a life insurance policy, you might think that the only role your insurer plays is to provide you with vital peace of mind. You pay your premium each month and, in return, the insurer keeps your policy in force, one which will provide much needed funds for your loved ones should the worst happen.
Increasingly, however, insurers are developing new ways of supporting their customers.
For example, the following support services might be on offer:
No one insurer will offer all of these, and the exact level of support varies from one provider to another, but it’s likely that your insurer will offer quite a few of these support services.
This support is very welcome indeed in the modern world, where cost of living pressures are all too obvious, and where one in four of us experience mental illness, not to mention the fact that many people struggle to get NHS GP appointments.
Life insurance is something you should very much be considering from the start of your adult life, especially if you have children, or a mortgage, or you earn more than your partner.
Income protection – which pays a replacement income should you be unable to work due to accident or sickness – is something you need to consider taking out as soon as you are in employment. What would the consequences be were you to cease receiving a wage and be forced to reply on the very limited state support?
Critical illness insurance might also be appropriate for adults of any age – after all you can be diagnosed with a serious illness at any age, no matter how young and healthy you might feel. This type of insurance is often taken out to protect a mortgage, and ensure the balance is paid off were you to be diagnosed with a critical illness. It is important to note, however, that critical illness can be a useful way of ensuring that you (and any children) can receive a lump sum to pay for medical treatment or nursing costs, or for the necessary modifications to your home to adapt to your condition.
Perhaps the best reason for taking out life insurance, critical illness insurance or income protection insurance at an early stage in your adult life is that your premiums will be much cheaper than would be the case at an older age.
If you would like to find out more, then contact Moneysworth today to see how we can help.
If people don’t take out life insurance, critical illness insurance or income protection insurance, then one of the reasons they might give is that they are prepared to take the risk and so they do not take steps to minimise the financial consequences of dying or becoming ill.
The problem with this approach is that, by not looking at appropriate insurances, you are potentially exposing your loved ones to the risk as well. A recent study by insurer LV= found that the average UK worker’s income supports as many as three people – so think about whether your spouse, partner and dependants could manage if your income was taken away suddenly.
The same study also exposed the low levels of savings held by the UK population, with 40% of workers not having an emergency fund of the recommended three months’ worth of average expenditure. This means that large numbers of people cannot rely on their savings to replace a wage earner’s income should the worst happen.
Life insurance can provide sufficient funds to replace the income of a family breadwinner should they pass away. It’s also possible to add critical illness cover to the policy, so that the same sum is paid out should you contract a serious illness.
Income protection policies can be set up to pay a significant proportion of your income, should you be unable to work due to accident or sickness.Moneysworth are experts in arranging life, critical illness and income protection insurance. We are a whole-of-market specialist protection broker and we can search the entire marketplace to find the most suitable product and provider for your individual circumstances. Contact us today to find out more.
