Spring clean your clients’ portfolios

Far from being a chore, though, I found the exercise satisfying and therapeutic, and it set me thinking about how much better our clients will feel if we help them give their savings and investments a spring clean.

Over the years, we all acquire things that seem like a good idea at the time. However, time and circumstance dictate that they are no longer appropriate, and the same situation often applies to our clients’ financial planning.

There have been so many changes in the savings, investment and pension worlds in recent years that even the most carefully constructed personal financial plan would almost certainly benefit from a spring clean.

Add to this the significant changes to taxation, interest rates and even retirement ages, and you soon realise the importance of reviewing your clients’ affairs.

To suggest a review to a client is not to imply that the original advice was wrong or inappropriate, it is simply recognising that the world keeps changing and their affairs need to be adjusted accordingly if their objectives are to be achieved.

Even the most carefully constructed personal financial plan would benefit from a ‘spring clean’

We are also now in a new tax year with all the implications that has for clients. Indeed, why wait until the end of the tax year panic for them to take out their Isa or top up their pension?

Get it done now so that your clients can enjoy the potential benefits of almost a full year of extra growth.

Perhaps your review could highlight where they can now invest or save more tax-efficiently than previously, given the changes to taxation.

Again, given the way in which product charging structures have generally reduced in recent years, you may well be able to suggest cost-effective ways that clients can increase the value they generate from their capital or current savings.

This same principle can also be applied to protection policies, as today’s much more sophisticated underwriting may mean that significant savings are possible.

However, please note that it is absolutely essential to ensure that the new cover is fully underwritten and in place before cancelling an existing policy. It would obviously be foolish in the extreme to expose a client to a tragedy occurring between one policy ceasing and the new one starting.

Ken Davy is chairman of SimplyBiz Group