I have mainly only worked with the staff of two major UK firms, one on the way down and one on the way up. Kodak was the former and Phoenix the latter. We handled the day-to-day planning for staff members’ futures as well as their major life events of retirement, redundancy, serious ill health and death.
One early case at Kodak has always stuck with me. The lady in question had died early and suddenly, leaving a young family. Being young she hadn’t seen the need to make a will and there were arguments as early as the funeral, over whether her car should go to her brother or grieving husband.
Death is one of those subjects that uniquely we will all experience, but we rarely talk about. Try as hard as they might, even the world’sBillionaires will one day die.
It is therefore extraordinary that the simple act of making a will is still only practiced by less than40% of the population.
A will is simply a document to state our wishes, so that we can control what happens when we are gone and we take the burden away from those left behind.
Without a will, you will die ‘Intestate’ and thisgovernment websiteexplains who gets what. It may not be the people you intend, and it is border line negligent if you are in a unmarried partnership because your sole assets will not pass to your partner. Fortunately, our Kodak lady was married but even then not all of her assets passed to her recently bereaved husband as some had to pass into a trust for her children under these rules.
Drafting a will is a reality low cost and simple process these days and it is something that we do for Phoenix staff who are full advice clients. If you are not a client of ours yet, there is a will writing option available via MyChoice.
We have seen many existing wills for Phoenix staff, and some have been over-complicated to justify high charges. Do be careful when engaging with a will writer who only earns money in this way that they don’t ‘up sell’ you into something more complex than you need. One key myth that we see being used to ‘sell’ wills is that a trust in the will protects your house from care fees, this is rarely the case as the rules around care fees funding are very clear on anti-avoidance.
We are advising many Phoenix staff members from across the UK, we would love to talk to you about wills, our planning service that is available via MyChoice, our full advice service or one of our regular webinars hosted by your employee benefits team.
