This one hour workshop will be a very practical session and provide attendees with an insight into the elements of a comprehensive Financial Plan, including lifetime cashflow forecasting and considering the impact of various scenarios.

The workshop is hosted by Andrew Neligan, an experienced Chartered Financial Planner, Certified Financial Planner (CFP) professional and Financial Planning Director of Informed Choice; the award-winning firm of Chartered Financial Planners named IFA of the Year and Best IFA Firm at recent awards.

Space at the workshop session is strictly limited to ensure maximum value for attendees. The workshop will commence promptly at 1pm and finish at 2pm. Tickets for this workshop are available at £15 each.

You can book your ticket online here.

Financial Planning Week is a consumer awareness campaign to help you take some simple steps to kick start your future. It takes place this year from 21st to 27th November 2011.

The Financial Planning Week campaign aims to raise awareness of how important Financial Planning is to your life.

It’s not just for people who have never thought about their finances, it’s for everyone, whatever your situation.

Putting some simple financial plans in place and making some smart decisions to help achieve your goals and dreams in life is the first step towards really taking control of your life and gaining valuable peace of mind.

Within this webcast I explained the background to the Lifetime Allowance, introduced in 2006 as part of pension modernisation changes, before describing the reduction in the Lifetime Allowance from £1.8m to £1.5m taking place on 6th April 2012.

When we talk about this subject, we are conscious that the Lifetime Allowance represents some very big numbers, even when it is reduced from the current level down to £1.5m. For this reason, it is not a subject that will have an impact on the vast majority of investors planning for retirement.

However, for those investors with larger pension funds or accumulated income benefits from defined benefit pension schemes, the tax charges for pension benefits over the level of the Lifetime Allowance can best be described as penal.

This is why it is important for some people to consider Fixed Protection to avoid the tax consequences of exceeding the Lifetime Allowance when it is reduced from April.

Before applying for Fixed Protection you should seek specialist independent financial advice to fully understand the pension benefits you might be giving up.

You can watch a recording of the webcast here or by using the viewer below.

Would you like to know more? Get in touch to speak to us about protection your pension benefits from penal tax charges.

The beauty of the way we do things round here is that any file must be at one of four stages in terms of the way we work with our clients. We have an acronym for it at Informed Choice – we call it EAIR. It stands for Engagement, Advice, Implementation and Review.

We might be in the process of working with you to find out if and how we can help you meet your goals and objectives. You might be going through the process of deciding if we are the right firm of Financial Planners for you. We call this stage Engagement.

The engagement process starts with us finding out about you and you finding out about us. It ends when you sign an engagement letter we send to you, setting out precisely what we are going to do for you and importantly what we will charge you to do it.

Only when we have agreed to our advice service delivery to you do we move on to data collection, data storage and data analysis to produce your bespoke report. This is the Advice stage in our process.

Above everything else, we believe that good quality financial advice is a very valuable thing and much more valuable than the selection of a financial product (although naturally we do that as well).

If we arrange or alter a financial product for you, we refer to it as Implementation. We select the most appropriate plans for you from the whole of the market and make absolutely sure it meets the objectives that we have identified together. Our administration team takes over responsibility for ensuring any plans are set up efficiently and correctly.

The worst investment or pension plan is not the most expensive or poorest performer (although both of those factors can be avoided) but it can be the most suitable and cost effective plan that is never reviewed. The absence of a robust review process can result in a very poor outcome. Our Review process ensures that plans are never left alone to quietly ‘fester’ in the corner.

So if you become a client of Informed Choice, you will know that at any given time your file will be going through the Engagement, Advice, Implementation or Review process.

The new design follows extensive planning and consultation with clients, professional connections and the Informed Choice team.

The site was created in partnership with [codepotato] who specialise in developing award-winning financial services websites. It is based on the WordPress content management system which will allow Informed Choice to update the content, including blog posts, at any time.

New features on the Informed Choice website include:

-Client case studies highlighting areas of financial planning expertise

-A newsroom for personal finance journalists

-Full integration with a range of social media websites

-Improved user interface including ‘breadcrumb’ navigation and Disqus comment system

The launch of the new website represents one of the final stages in a comprehensive rebranding exercise for Informed Choice and will shortly be joined by a mobile site.

You can view the new Informed Choice website at www.icl-ifa.co.uk. Do let us know what you think!

You will be a Diploma qualified IFA with ambitions to become a Chartered Financial Planner and/or Certified Financial Planner (CFP) professional. You will have a proven track record of generating at least £150,000 per annum in adviser charges, with a service ethic and positive attitude.

Joining an award-winning firm of Chartered Financial Planners, you will be keen to leverage the profile of our business to develop prospective client and professional connection relationships whilst providing a proactive ongoing service to your existing clients.

Our well resourced head office team in Cranleigh provide full administration, Paraplanning, technical, compliance and business development support, enabling you to focus entirely on delivering services to existing and prospective clients.

We find that our Financial Planners are able to have their most productive ever year of business in the first twelve months of joining the Informed Choice team, as a result of our robust systems and processes, along with the value of our brand and the quality of our people.

Whilst we are based in Surrey, we are open-minded when it comes to the location of new Financial Planners joining the team. The only requirement to attend head office is ten afternoons a year for our team meetings where we share best practice and provide a regulatory update.

We encourage direct contact from candidates (no agencies, please), by calling Nick or Martin on 01483 274566 or by emailing nick or martin @icl-ifa.co.uk. Your enquiry will be treated with the strictest confidence.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Photo credit: Flickr/purvesjk

In working out a financial settlement between divorcing couples the sometimes complex subject of how a pension plan benefit might be shared comes to the table.

Solicitors acting for the two parties will often invite a pensions expert to analyse the pension benefits held by the couple and work out how these funds should be shared to provide equality of income at retirement.

Of course the only way that this can be done accurately is to find out a lot of information about the pension plans.

One of the things that we notice in this area is that sometimes the data with which we are provided is out of date or incomplete.

Even for relatively simple pension plans (for example a Personal Pension Plan or Stakeholder Pension Plan), there is a substantial amount of data needed – for example;

· The name and address of the product provider;

· The policy or plan number(s);

· The start date of the plan;

· The expected maturity or retirement date of the plan;

· A complete record of the contributions paid into the plan by the plan owner and where applicable an employer;

· Whether the plan has been used to contract-out of the State Second Pension scheme and if so;

· The amount of the plan that represents “protected rights” (the part made up of National Insurance contribution payments to the plan);

· The current value of the plan broken down by investment funds;

· The transfer value of the plan so that any exit penalties can be identified;

· Whether the plan contains any kind of investment guarantees (such as guaranteed bonus rates on a with profits fund);

· Whether the plan has any guaranteed annuity rates in the policy conditions available at retirement age or indeed any other age;

When you consider that very often the information provided is simply the name of the provider and the transfer value, you can see that whilst that may enable a rough answer to the question “how much should be shared by each party?” it would be much more precise an answer with all the above information provided.

When the parties require advice about sharing a defined benefit (final salary) scheme then there is a whole load more information needed.

One of the things that we are going to do shortly is host a seminar for Solicitors and their staff explaining how these single joint expert witness reports are constructed and how vital it is to provide all of the relevant information.

Photo credit: Flickr/Keoni Cabral

www.cranleighshow.org.uk

If you have never been before (and indeed if you have) it is well worth attending.

There is plenty to see and do for everyone. As a family we attend every year and the delight of taking our grandchildren has made it more fun than ever.

This year we will for the first time be sponsoring one of the classes – The Dexter Heifer class – and we thought you might like to know what one of those looks like!

Don’t ask me what Dexter cattle have to do with Financial Planning because I simply don’t know but we thought this would be a fun thing to do to support a very worthwhile local event.

Martin visited the Showground yesterday evening and took this photo with Winterfold hill in the background:

Dexter Cattle photo courtesy of The Dexter Cattle Society Website at www.dextercattle.co.uk

Andrew will be looking at the ten most important factors for selecting a Financial Planner, the questions you must ask and the answers you should expect to receive.

This webcast is ideal for investors who are thinking about engaging with an IFA or Financial Planner, and also for people with an existing financial adviser who want to make sure they remain up to scratch.

Our personal finance webcasts are broadcast live online and a recorded version of the live broadcast is then made available to watch on our website.

By registering for the live broadcast, you can ask Andrew questions during the webcast and get answers to any specific queries you have about choosing an IFA.

You can register for free at www.brighttalk.com/webcast/5355/30881.

In the 2010/11 company year which ended today, Informed Choice has grown its revenue by 57% to over £1 million.

In a year which has seen a significant investment in infrastructure and resources to support further growth in the future, net profits have increased by 33% compared to the previous year.

Informed Choice managing director Martin Bamford commented on the results:

“It is a testament to the quality of our team and client proposition that we have been able to build on what was our best ever company year to deliver another outstanding set of results this year.

“The work we have completed to reposition our business ahead of the Retail Distribution Review has enabled us to focus on growing the business. The goal now is to continue with our strategy to become the advisers of choice for affluent and high net worth investors in Surrey.”

During the past twelve months, Informed Choice has been awarded the Gold Standard for Independent Financial Advice at the Gold Standard Awards 2010. They were named Best IFA Firm at the Unbiased.co.uk Media IFA of the Year Awards 2011 and awarded Best IFA Website at the Professional Adviser Awards 2011.

Informed Choice now has a team of six Financial Planners, with three of these holding the Chartered Financial Planner and Certified Financial Planner (CFP) professional designations.

Martin continues:

“We are witnessing a growing demand from individuals, trustees and business owners for professional independent financial advice from highly qualified and experienced Financial Planners on a fee-charging basis.

“The strength of our team-based approach to the delivery of advice and service, our robust investment advice process and client communications have all set us apart from the competition and allowed us to become one of the largest financial planning firms in Surrey over the past couple of years.”

Informed Choice is continuing to grow organically at a steady pace, with the recruitment of one more Financial Planner scheduled for this year and another in the early part of 2012.

Chartered Financial Planner Andrew Neligan was recently appointed as Financial Planning Director to help steer the direction of the Financial Planning proposition at Informed Choice, with Lizanne Doyle being promoted to Client Services Manager to manage the administration function of the business.

Executive Director Nick Bamford commented: “Andrew and Lizanne will both become shareholders in the business at the start of next year, as part of our strategy to put in place a long-term succession plan for the current business owners.

“We have always believed that a valuable IFA business has four main attributes, which are people, brand, systems and processes, and assets under management. As we continue to grow the business, we will focus on these four factors and our strategic roadmap measures progress against each of these.”

The recruitment of three new Financial Planners last year has seen the assets under management at Informed Choice grow from £70 million to over £100 million. Informed Choice now works with 470 active clients, providing comprehensive annual review reports and meetings to remain up to date with changing circumstances and objectives.

Nick continued: “One of our biggest projects this year is the implementation of a new back office system, supplied by Avelo. This is already improving the delivery of review reporting to our clients and the efficiency of this reporting, allowing us to spend more time with our clients which is what they really value.

“We also look forward to relaunching our popular website later this year, which will include additional functionality to enable clients to view their portfolios online.

The future looks bright for Informed Choice, with a realistic business plan to achieve at least 20% annual growth over the next two years, no debt and an RDR-ready business model.

Nick and Andrea Bamford had decided to create an advisory firm where the focus was truly on that – delivering the best possible advice.

The original intention was for Informed Choice to be a part of a larger IFA firm, Weybourne Financial Services in Chertsey, where Nick was Pensions Director.

Within nine days this plan had changed quite significantly when a good friend, David Scott (the managing director at Weybourne FS) died at the tragically young age of 52.

So out of adversity our new business was formed.

Where have the past seventeen years gone? You might ask Martin, now managing director of Informed Choice, who was only 15 at the time and did the occasional filing for the company when it was formed.

Two years after the business was formed, in 1996, we moved into Sundial House in Cranleigh which remains our head office to this day. We then became directly authorised by the Personal Investment Authority (PIA) in 2001.

Nick and Andrea’s son Martin joined the business in 2002, becoming a director in 2004.

We started a big process of change in 2004 which resulted in Informed Choice becoming the 99th firm of Chartered Financial Planners in the UK in 2007 and winning the title IFA of the Year in 2010.

And along the way of course there are all of the individual stories of people come and gone until we arrive at the team we have today.

Many of the clients we work with today were our clients in 1994, and indeed many for longer than that from when Nick first became an IFA in 1989.

We have come a long way since the formation of our business in 1994.

Today, Informed Choice is one of the largest firms in the region, with a team of eight highly qualified and experienced Financial Planners supported by five Paraplanners and administrators.

With our company year coming up at the end of this month, we are on course to have annual turnover in excess of £1m for the first time in the history of the business. Last year was our most successful year ever in business and this year is set to be even better.

We continue to grow as a business, recruiting the very best people in retail financial services to deliver our award-winning services to individuals, trustees and business owners across Surrey and the rest of the UK.

What will Informed Choice look like in 17 years time? It is difficult to say, but we all hope that some of the attributes it has today are still around in the year 2028. A focus on really good advice will never go out of date.

As we celebrate our 17th birthday today at Informed Choice, we would like to say a big thank you to all of our clients, professional connections, providers, suppliers and staff.

Thank you for helping to make Informed Choice what it is today. We look forward to continuing on this journey together for many years to come.

Photo credit: Flickr/eirikso