Financial PlannersInsurance ProtectionNews Up To Date Wealth Protection Plan

Is Your Wealth Protection Plan Up to Date?

Wealth protection, also known as insurance, helps you protect yourself and your family. It helps you ensure financial security for yourself and your family in case something bad happens to you. We have been providing wealth protection and financial planning in the Perth area since 2005. We can’t provide individual advice without a consult, but here is an overview of how a solid wealth protection plan may protect you and your family.

The Four Basic Types of Insurance

There are four basic types of insurance cover: income protection, trauma cover, total and permanent disablement (TPD) and life insurance.

Income protection pays you up to 75% of your income in monthly payments during any period of time that you are unable to work because of injury or illness. This provides for your monthly expenses and keeps you and your family afloat while you are unable to work.

Trauma cover pays you a lump sum if you are diagnosed with a specific illness or medical condition outlined in the plan. Many plans also cover medical procedures such as bypass surgery. This allows you to focus on getting well instead of worrying about finances.

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Investment PlanningNews How Investment Planning can Help Your Money Work

How Investment Planning can Help Your Money Work for the Future

At Approved Financial Planners, we have over 40 years of combined experience in providing investment planning in the Perth area. In this era, more people are paying attention to their future. For many people in the Perth area, “saving up for retirement” isn’t good enough anymore. In addition, many are opting to turn their current superannuation funds into self managed superannuation funds.

Understanding Investment Planning

Effective investing makes your money work for you. However, investments carry an inherent risk. Generally, the higher the risk, the higher the reward. When we consult with our clients, we like to make a plan. That plan usually includes your goals, assets, current income, projected income and risk tolerance.

Your Investment Goals

Different investors have different goals. Some just want to pick a retirement date and a level of income that will allow them to live comfortably. Others can be more aggressive, wanting to create cash flow for now and for the future.

The first step is to communicate your goals. These can be short-term goals that you want to attain in the next 6 months to a year, medium-term goals that you want to attain in 2 to 5 years and long-term goals that are more than 5 years in the future.

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Financial PlannersInsurance ProtectionNews Financial Planner Discuss NDIS

Is the National Disability Insurance Scheme Enough to Protect You and Your Family?

Currently, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has two trial sites in the Perth area. The NDIS is under the umbrella of the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA). It is currently available for residents of two Perth suburban areas: the Lower South West and Cockburn/Kwinana.

What is the NDIS?

According to their Government website, the NDIS is a scheme in which the disabled are offered community assistance to help them live better lives. It is designed to assist not only people with disabilities, but their carers and their families. It is intended to provide those who suffer a significant and permanent disability. Assistance includes information, referrals, individualised supports and plans, early intervention and support to help access activities and community services.*

However, there is one thing that the NDIS isn’t: it is not Total and Permanent Disability Cover.

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Financial PlannersNews Financial Advisor's Duty Of Care

Does Your Financial Advisor Understand Duty of Care?

If you are looking for a financial advisor in Perth, you have probably noticed that there are a lot of choices out there. Financial advisors are bound by a concept called “duty of care.” The concept of having a “duty of care” is communicated in many different ways by statutes involving the provision of financial advice.

What is “Duty of Care”?

“Duty of care” basically means that your financial advisor is required to look out for your best interests and inform you of developments that may increase the risk of any investment they have recommended to you.*

Swan and Baker Pty Limited vs. Marando

It is best illustrated by a decision which was upheld by the NSW court of appeal last year: Swan and Baker Pty Limited vs. Marando. A financial advisor and the firm he worked for were accused of misleading and deceptive conduct by two investors. They were also accused of a breach of professional duty because they had provided negligent advice.*

In 2008, Mr and Mrs Marando invested $500,000 in the City Pacific Ltd Mortgage Fund on the advice of accounting firm Swan & Baker. The funds were to be invested for 90 days and available for reinvestment after the term had elapsed. Swan & Baker gave the Marandos a copy of a document called the Fund Product Disclosure Statement. Within the statement was a 14-day “cooling off” period that applied to new investments.*

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Financial PlannersNews Financial Advice For All Australians

Financial Planning Association of Australia Cites Intergenerational Report: Recommends Financial Advice for all Australians

The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) cited a recent Government document as confirmation that all Australians need professional financial advice. As a firm that has provided financial planning help in the Perth area since 2005, we have always felt that a good financial planner can make a difference in anyone’s future.

2015 Intergenerational Report

The document in question is produced by the Treasury: the 2015 Intergenerational Report (IGR). According to the IGR, life expectancy will increase greatly in the next forty years. At birth, men are projected to have a life expectancy of 95.1 years, while women can expect to live 96.6 years. Today’s life expectancy at birth is 91.5 years for men and 93.6 years for women.*

The end result is that, by 2055, the ratio of working Australians to those who are over 65 will be 2.7 to 1. Today, that ratio is 4.5 to 1. In 1974/75, for comparison, it was 7.3 to 1.*

Mark Rantall, who is the FPA’s CEO, feels that it will be important for Australians to maximise their superannuation funds to rely less on age pensions. According to Mr Rantall, “The IGR makes it very clear that [those with higher superannuation savings are less reliant on age pension].”

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Financial PlannersNews Financial Planning Provides Psychological Benefits

Little-Known Research Paper Indicates that Financial Planning Provides Psychological Benefits

We have more than 40 years of combined experience in providing financial planning to the Perth area, but even we were surprised when we found a little-known research paper authored by Kym Irving from the Queensland Institute of Technology in 2012. The article was subsequently published by Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal in their special issue on Financial Planning.

According to Ms Irving, the traditional six-step process of financial planning not only impacts clients mechanically through results, but psychologically, too. One of the central themes of the article is that the physical reality of improved well-being also results in a better psychological sense of well-being.

The Six-Step Process

The very nature of financial planning is that it helps individuals create a series of positive, goal-oriented outcomes by helping them manage their funds and ensuring that they meet their financial goals. Ms Irving used a six-step model of financial planning that included:*

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Financial PlannersNewsRetirement Planning Retirement Planning With Financial Planners Perth

Close to Retirement? It Might be Time for a Financial Checkup.

Retirement planning is one of our specialties. We have more than 40 years of combined experienced helping Perth residents get the most out of their retirement years. Our financial planners can work with you to devise an individual plan that can help you develop and meet a specific set of goals. This can help ensure your desired retirement lifestyle.

While it is always better to start retirement planning as early as possible, we realise that a lot of people are too busy living their lives to think about it. We know that it’s easy to see retirement as something far off in the future, only to wake up one day and realise that the future is coming up pretty fast.

The Process

Basically, the sooner one decides to work towards retirement, the easier it is to help them reach their financial goals. We like to have our clients choose a specific retirement date and how much money they want to have waiting for them when they get there. From there, it is easy to make a solid plan and start executing it.

If Retirement is Coming Soon

For those who are approaching retirement age and didn’t follow a plan or for those who just want to make sure they maximise all of their resources, we can help. No matter what you have done in your past, we can help you maximise what you have.

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Financial PlannersNews Track Your Spending for One Month

Can You Track Your Spending for One Month?

If you work with a financial advisor in our Perth office, one of the first things you will probably be asked to do is to figure out your monthly expenses. There is also a pretty good chance that your financial planner will advise you to create a budget.

Knowing monthly income and expenses is one of the first steps to getting a handle on your financial situation. The better you are at this, the easier it is for a financial planner to provide you with your desired results.

Why Track Spending?

Usually, when someone tracks their spending accurately, it is a true eye-opener. They usually find a lot of surprises and have no idea they were spending so much money on entertainment or any of many other things. Accurate tracking allows you to see exactly what you are spending instead of guessing based on what you want to remember.

What to Do

Spending is easily tracked on your smartphone. Both iPhone and Android have plenty of apps to help you easily and accurately track every bit of money you spend. If you don’t like any of the apps, you can create a spreadsheet or just use a piece of paper.

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Financial PlannersNews Too Busy to Invest? We can Help.

Too Busy to Invest? We can Help.

Financial advisors in Perth are nearly ubiquitous. There are seemingly so many financial planners around that we can get “placed on the back burner” by many. As a result, people who have worked hard to make a good amount of money may just be letting their money sit in bank accounts and making a minimal amount of passive income.

Our Process

At Approved Financial Planners, we make it easy for you to invest. We require an individual consultation and some basic information. We will assess your risk tolerance. When we have taken all of your individual factors into consideration, we will devise a financial plan that makes sense for you.

We will present that plan and with your permission, execute it for you. You spend minimal time and effort but are able to reap the benefits of our financial planning. After we know what you want, we can research investments for you and do all of the paperwork. That means all you have to do is sign the documents.

At Approved Financial Planners, we help minimise your market risk by diversifying your investment portfolio. We do check in on a regular basis so that we can adjust your investment strategy to fit your goals, current lifestyle and financial situation.

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Investment PlanningNews Pros and Cons of Property Investment

Pros and Cons of Property Investment

Since we offer both mortgage consulting and financial planning, we are in a unique position to observe the Perth property market. Our financial planners see property investment from a lot of different points of view. Since everyone’s financial situation is different, we can’t give any individual advice on a blog such as this one. But we can offer up the pros and cons of property investment.

Advantages of Property Investment

Property is a tangible investment. Many assets are only seen on paper, but a home can be seen and touched. Property also forces the investor to invest on a regular basis. If you are able to achieve positive gearing, tenants not only pay the interest on your loan but supply you with cash flow.

There are a plethora of tax benefits for landlords. One of these is depreciation on the building, which helps offset the capital gain if you sell the property down the road.

Property investment is one of the more easy to understand investment vehicles. It can also be said that most people turn a profit if they hold onto a well-maintained, well-selected property for a period of twenty years or more. Property investment allows you to leverage the bank’s money to profit off of the property’s capital growth.

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