a . c u . i t . y ~ clear financial vision
Acuity Financial cover most areas of financial planning and are happy to provide a total financial review, or concentrate on one specific area.
The core of our business is standard financial planning, ranging from mortgage advice for the first time buyer to investment portfolio construction and management. However, we specialise in a number of areas, where professional advice is extremely important.
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PRIVATE PENSIONS. Many people (possibly even the majority) have fair sized pension funds sitting with dead insurers, in overcharging contracts or in unsuitable funds - what return have you seen over the last year compared to what it should have been?
Are you saving enough for your retirement? It is becoming increasingly clear that we will have to fund our own retirement, be that through pensions or otherwise, and you should be making a serious commitment for your future.
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OPTIONS AT RETIREMENT. It is important that you get your annuity options right as these cannot be changed, or should you be looking beyond annuities at more sophisticated products? If you have a pension pot much above the average then you should be looking beyond the conventional, to avoid the traditional drawbacks.
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OCCUPATIONAL PENSIONS in difficulties or windup. Taking the correct decisions now can make an enormous difference to the final outcome, many companies will not even look into this sort of area.
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TRUST & TAXATION – we provide investment advice where monies are held under Power of Attorney, to pay for nursing fees, or where investments are made by parents for their children.
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ESTATE PLANNING. Lord Jenkins once quoted that 'Inheritance tax is, broadly speaking, a voluntary levy paid by those who distrust their heirs more than they dislike the Inland Revenue'. Given some of the simple procedures that can avoid IHT this is largely true - though with the changes in the March 2006 budget this is one area that has been placed on hold for the moment.
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PROTECTION PLANNING. 1 in 3 people will get cancer before age 75. 150,000 people a year die from heart attacks. Not a very pleasant subject, but one that needs to be addressed. We can provide life cover, critical illness cover, income protection and so forth to protect families, cover mortgages, or for other needs. If you have existing plans you should consider whether the cover levels are still appropriate, of even if you are paying more than necessary for the correct level of cover.
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CHILD TRUST FUNDS. As noted on our first page, Acuity means clear and sharp ideas, and we try to take a different outlook to most. This can be well demonstrated currently with our advice on Child Trust Funds, where we only recommend 2 companies from the whole market.
Nothing unusual there maybe - but how many other companies have pointed out the drawbacks to investing further, and questioned whether this is really a good idea - there are a lot of better ways of saving for children (do you want your child to have access to thousands of pounds at age 18, with no say over how they spend it?).
A financial services company advising against investing, now that must be different................................