Financial Services in Brighton
call us on 01273 922136
How We Can Help You
We offer a range of financial services from personal wealth management to corporate financial services.
Wealth Management
Investments
The fundamental objective with investments is to achieve an above average investment performance for a given level of investment risk.
This is predominantly down to an appropriate asset allocation i.e. the split between equities, fixed interest, properties and cash. It will also be down to the charges on a contract and the fund management arrangements.
Pensions
Pension Advice
Due to the nature of pensions, both in their importance and, in most cases, complexity, we strongly recommend seeking pension advice from one of our advisers.
We at IEP Financial use the whole of the market to make sure you achieve the highest possible income in retirement.
Final Salary Pension
There has been huge interest from people with Direct Benefit pension arrangements in transferring these to a Defined Contribution arrangement that they can then use to take advantage of Pension Freedoms.
We understand this can be a little daunting and so we’ve put together a summary to help you understand the sorts of things you need to consider carefully before deciding if transferring your DB benefits is right for you.
Personal Insurance
Life Insurance
The common starting point for most people when they consider personal protection against unforeseen events and circumstances is life insurance.
This is generally the cheapest type of cover available and if a death occurred it would lessen the financial impact on the life assured’s family.
Critical Illness Cover
These policies normally cover approximately 40 conditions, of which the three biggest in terms of claims are heart attack, cancer and stroke.
Critical illness cover should be regarded as important and pay-outs are generally made in lump sums to replace lost income, changes to property or fund a necessary adjustment in lifestyle, such as reduced working hours.
Mortgage Protection
This is Insurance cover that a home buyer can purchase to cover mortgage repayments in the eventuality that the buyer loses their job or is financially unable to keep making mortgage payments.
Mortgage protection is essentially there to protect your mortgage loan should you risk default due to illness, accident, unemployment or death.
Income Protection
Income protection policies provide a replacement income after the ‘deferred period’ i.e. the period you’ve been unable to work due to ill health, injury or sickness.
This will generally be a tax free monthly benefit, payable until you can return to work or the end of the policy term.
Corporate Services
Auto Enrolment
Auto Enrolment applies to virtually all employers; even those with only one employee and employers must contribute to these pension schemes.
The Pensions Regulator can issue fines to businesses who do not adhere to the legislation or who miss their staging date. All employees must be enrolled, but they do have the option of opting out of the scheme.
Protection
Directors in particular must make sure that they have sufficient cover in place to look after their families and also ensure that ownership of the business or company is not contestable.
There are a number of different steps and measures you can take to protect your business and employees. These range from complex forms of financial planning to life assurance and medical schemes.
Key Person Protection
Key person protection is an excellent way to for a company or a business to protect themselves against anything happening to important fee earners or those with specialist expertise. The financial effects of losing this type of employee can be significant & with the right cover in place the impact can be greatly reduced.
The type of protection policy you choose will depend on the specific person and the circumstances involved.
Relevant Life
Relevant life works on a single life basis & as such works well for small businesses that want to offer life assurance benefits, but do not have enough employees to qualify for a registered group scheme.
There are other benefits as well. Unlike a registered group scheme these policies do not affect the amount you can contribute to or accumulate in your pension scheme.
This is particularly useful for high earners who may exceed the lifetime pension allowance.
Shareholder Protection
Many companies and businesses do not have sufficient protection policies in place to cope with the death or serious ill health of a director or shareholder.
Shareholder protection involves life cover on the shareholders and business owners to the value of their stake in the business. It requires a cross option agreement.
We encourage all companies to review their shareholder protection arrangements. There are a number of reasons for doing so.
Mortgages
Mortgages
Buying a house is normally your single biggest financial commitment and making the right decision will save you money. However, before you can purchase a house you first need to achieve a mortgage offer.
Mortgage lenders will use an affordability calculator that will factor in your income and outgoings. Any other credit commitments will reduce the amount they will be prepared to lend.
Buy-To-Let Mortgages
Changes introduced in April have given you more choice over how you use your pension savings once you reach the age of 55. One of the key reforms enables you to take your entire pension as cash, subject to tax, if you so wish.
Alternatively, you can withdraw an income or one-off lump sums whenever you like. Previously, when people felt forced into buying an annuity, they had much less control.
Equity Release
Equity release is getting very popular in the UK as more and more people over the age of 55 who are home owners are looking to access some of the financial wealth and benefits locked up in their homes.
Due to price rises in property the amount of equity in your home could be significant, and provide an option for releasing a capital sum.
Reviews From Our Clients
“Tim Jones has assisted us with finding the best pension scheme for our individual requirements. He has been professional, helpful and prompt at all stages and I would not hesitate to recommend him. I was most impressed with his recent presentation to our staff and for fielding all questions that came his way. It reassured our team and time was given to each person to discuss their individual circumstances too. The advice to date has been invaluable.”
“Like many SME’s, we had known about work place pension obligations for a while but for a variety of reasons had not yet got round to preparing for our staging date in 2017. Tim from IEP made it all very easy for us and delivered a proposal that was easy to understand and cost effective. The presentation to our staff was extremely good and the aftercare service has been excellent. Tim has understood our needs and professionally delivered the right proposal to us. He also demonstrated commendable patience and a sense of humour in dealing with us; a SME with limited resources which needed to sort out its pension scheme within a small space of time!”
“Sussex CCC has had a longstanding and successful relationship with IEP Financial. It goes without saying that they were our first port of call when deciding who to guide us through our pension requirements. In February, IEP Financial directed us though Auto Enrolment. Patrick Spencer was our lead & was professional, knowledgeable and always on the end of the phone if we had any questions. We have successfully completed Auto Enrolment with no problems & would not hesitate to recommend IEP Financial to other organisations, looking for help with Auto Enrolment or indeed any other aspect of financial planning."