Financial advisers can be great sounding boards for difficult topics and a recent survey found the main query made by clients is about early retirement.
Standard Life surveyed 287 UK advisers and found that the most common question they are asked by clients close to retirement is how much money they need to retire early (58%).
This is closely followed by asking if they should take tax-free cash as a lump sum (48%).
Other questions raised in the survey included how to pay less tax (38%), the impact of Brexit on finances (36%), transferring defined benefit (DB) pensions (22%) and buying an annuity (16%).
Gifting to children and grandchildren in a tax efficient way during their lifetime and after death scored 9% and 14%, respectively.
Growing trend
Alastair Black, head of wrap platform proposition at Standard Life, said: “Clients close to retirement want to make the most of their hard-earned savings, so it’s unsurprising to see questions on early retirement and lump sums asked most frequently.
“This demonstrates the true value of good advice, as these are basic questions that can have a huge impact on retirement planning.
“An interesting dimension we are seeing in the research is the healthy proportion of clients seeking advice on inheritance tax (IHT) and gifting to children and grandchildren.
“Advisers are telling us this is a growing trend as more clients have larger amounts of money to manage.
“The area of intergenerational wealth transfer is reasonably ‘young’ in the UK market; we predict it will become an increasingly important part of the advice and planning process.”
