For people of any age the massive marketing and media hype surrounding financial planning is daunting.We are confronted by it on a daily basis in newspapers, on television, even on the side of the buses we use, so it is little wonder that many ignore it, some are terrified of it, but we all need it in different ways. Often it is late in life before many of us

have an amount of money large enough to warrant serious financial planning. Losing family means property and estate inheritance and suddenly we may find ourselves with the kind of nest egg which we could only dream about years ago.

Every bank and building society on the planet would like to get you within the clutches of their financial planners, to say nothing of the barrage of unsolicited telephone calls offering you anything from a mortgage to a time share in Magaluf.

The governing body for financial services in this country is called the Financial Services Authority. So stringent are its rules now that it is a miracle anyone ever becomes a financial consultant of any kind.You will have read the horror stories in the press about the penalties imposed on some, granted often for extracting large sums of money from people with the promise of benefits later on.

If you choose to avail yourselves of the services of a financial consultant beware. There are basically two types of consultant. An Independent Financial Advisor who should pick the best products for you from the myriad on offer from all companies, or a tied agent who can only sell the products of the institution that employs him or her.

Theoretically the IFA should be the better choice, but watch out for those who may have extremely lucrative commission deals with certain companies if they recommend their products. Perhaps the best choice is the advisor who charges you a pre-arranged fee for advice which should give you a better deal on the product rather than them.

Before offering any kind of advice they will go through a long and complex questioning of your current financial position, including life assurances, investments and property. It may be called a fact find, a personal financial review or something catchy. It is supposed to be as much for their benefit as yours so it is worth persevering even though it may take some time to complete.

The advice should cover life assurance arrangements and if they have been in force for some years resist any temptations to cash them in. A life assurance policy is often made up of two types of bonuses, reversionary (meaning those added each ) and terminal, which as the name suggests is payable upon maturity of a policy or earlier death of the life assured. Surrendering usually means losing all of the terminal bonuses, a very large part of the final value of a policy, and it is highly unlikely you would affect similar cover at the same cost in later life.

If you are over 50 it should be the case that all your life assurances and pension arrangements are in place. Life assurances may be term assurance, high cover on life for a given term with no maturity value, endowments, which mature after a given term and may be linked to investment funds or whole of life cover, payable only on the death of the life assured.

Most of these types of policy are called ordinary branch life assurance policies, but, in the case of older people, you may well come across something known as an Industrial Branch policy. These were low premium policies designed, as the name suggests, as an insurance and saving vehicle for people during the more austere times when large premiums could not be afforded. Remember The Man from the Pru? These were usually the premiums which he collected door to door each week or month.

Never be persuaded to cash in any such policies for I have seen their proceeds become a godsend to many families when they have lost an aged loved one.

That is a very compressed overview of insurance. I will make no attempt to cover pensions, unit trusts or bonds here for it is such a specialist area. Perhaps you begin to see why that Independent Financial Advisor could be so important to you.

Selling endowment policies is another tricky area which has had much media coverage in recent years. It may be a viable alternative to cashing a policy. A company buying your policy will look at accrued bonuses to date and offer you a figure based on what they may expect to get by paying the premiums to maturity, usually a far better option than cashing in.

It is in the area of investment where older people are likely to be much more interested. This is a vast minefield and needs specialist advice.You have worked hard for your money and before tying it up long term be very sure. Combined with inheritance tax liability advice these could be the two most important areas, along with taxation, here a modest fee for an IFA could be the best money you ever spend.

Many readers may have investment property in other countries and my advice here is to take the advice of a UK advisor and find a corresponding expert in the country where your other property is situated. Foreign rules and regulations can be vastly different to ours!

With property prices continuing to boom in the UK it may be that some of you are considering one of the many equity release or home purchase schemes, which allow you to live in your property for a rental after releasing a percentage of the value. This is another area where I cannot stress to highly the importance of the best professional, and indeed legal, advice available.

Don’t forget, it is your money. Take the advice and all the time in the world to consider it, and never be too proud to ask for a second or even third opinion to make your money count for you.

Graham Smith