Pension Strategy Specialist joins Legal & Financial 100

Estelle Ellam Financial Planner and Pension Strategy Specialists joins Legal & Financial 100.

As retirement approaches (and indeed, during it sometimes) it is time to take stock and try to design a strategy to ensure that one can comfortably live out one’s remaining years.  This is where I come in.  I will:

• Pull together all your various pension schemes, cutting through the impenetrable documentation amassed and explain in clear terms what it is that you have, what it all means and what it all amounts to.
• Then we outline the various options open to you.
• Next, we discuss your expectations and hopes for the future, determining how much income will be required in each decade of retirement.  Existing pension funds, together with other assets will need to be analysed, risk adjusted, rebalanced and monitored which we undertake in conjunction with other specialists as necessary.
• With the aid of bespoke cashflow spreadsheets and taking into account all other investments, we then design and present the optimum strategy which we then implement and monitor annually thereafter.
• In addition to the foregoing I can also advise upon a wide range of pension matters including:
  1. Pension Splitting on Divorce (Pension Sharing Orders)
  2. Selecting the most appropriate Annuity (including Impaired Annuities).
  3. Effecting a Self Invested Pension Plan (SIPP).
  4. Pension Transfers.
  5. Changing from a Small Self Administered Scheme (SSAS) to a SIPP
  6. Income Drawdown (now known as Unsecured Pension (USP) or Alternatively Secured Pension (ASP)) or Income Withdrawal Plans.
  7. Phased Retirement Plans.
  8. Calculation of Death Benefits (using bespoke spreadsheets).
  9. General advice on old style plans such as Retirement Annuities (also known as S.226 plans), Section 32 plans, Executive Pension Plans.
  10. Retrieving Historic Pension Data on behalf of clients.

Over the years, pension rules have become mired in complexity and the recent “Pensions Simplification” rules have simply added to that complexity.  Now, more than ever, advice is necessary to interpret those rules and identify options which would otherwise remain unnoticed.  An adviser capable of offering such a service should ideally have an actual (rather than working) knowledge of the rules since the early 70’s.