GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

equivalent transfer values, so the value of your final salary pension fund

probably is the highest it has ever been and people really need advice as to

whether they should stay with that company or whether they should move that

money away to their own pot and there have been some very important

legislative changes in the last couple of years in relation to pensions that

people need to understand and get their heads round and try and understand

whether that is appropriate to their circumstances. We are available to help

and assist in that respect as well.

In terms of things like life insurance and critical illness, again people really

need help and assistance with that. I know you can go online and you can

Google it, but where do you go and how should you set it up and that sort of

thing? Actually for pennies a day it is something that we should all have and I

think sometimes if you do not sit down and talk about it, you do not quite know

what is the most appropriate for you. I had a salutary lesson a couple of

months back. I took a client on two years ago now. He is an accountant. We

sat down and he was telling me everything is in order and I looked through it all

and I did not really argue with him and perhaps I should have done. Sadly,

three months ago he died of cancer. It was a very quick diagnosis. I sat with

his widow last month and because his affairs were not in the order they should

have been she said, “The mortgage company is on to me, how do I sort this

out?” and if we had some life insurance in place that would have been cleared

straight away. So things like that, people do, sadly, die early, people do get

critical illnesses and something like that is something we can help and assist

with.

Also things like ISAs and your savings plans, some basic savings and planning,

they are the type of things that we can do. In a moment I am going to introduce

Helen just to give you a couple of minutes on some of the unions that we

already work with and the type of things that we do for them also, but as a

business our aim really is to be the go-to business for financial advice for

unions, that is our real go-to phrase, if you like. Thank you for your time and

please do come and talk to us, send us an email if you have got any questions

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