October 2018 newsletter

Life expectancy is a complex topic, so we’ve put together a straightforward guide to help explain the key concepts – enabling you to plan your retirement with a bit more confidence.

Planning for your retirement and working out how much you’ll need to enjoy a good standard of living after your working years can be a complex task, and one factor that needs to be considered is inflation.

When you die, the tax man can be pretty quick to put his hand out to take his cut, and this also applies to the balance of your super account.

The amount of super YOU need to retire will depend on your personal circumstances, financial resources both inside and outside super and your lifestyle. So before you set an arbitrary super target, block out the fearmongers and think about the big picture.

The decision about when to retire is rarely made overnight. It’s a major life event and deserves careful thought and planning. Finances play a big part, but so do your health, your partner’s circumstances and whether you still enjoy your work or are itching to leave.

The widely-reported ASFA Retirement standard suggests couples can enjoy a ‘comfortable lifestyle’ on just over $60,000 a year while singles can do the same on around $43,000. If that sounds less than comfortable to you, perhaps an income of $100,000 a year is closer to the mark.

SuperGuide’s Super to income Reckoner can help you quickly and simply understand approximately how much retirement income your super savings might be able to generate.

A million dollars is often bandied about as the gold standard of retirement savings. It certainly sounds like a lot of money, but is it enough to retire on not just comfortably but in style?

Since 1 July 2017 there has been a $1.6 million limit on the amount you can transfer into a super account in pension phase. The question is, is this an arbitrary figure dreamed up by bureaucrats or is it enough for a dream retirement?

Paying too much for Income Protection insurance inside your super fund can cost you dearly, eating into your retirement savings without necessarily improving your cover.

Using a re-contribution strategy with your super sounds complex and mysterious, but in reality the name says it all – you withdraw some of the savings in your super account and then you re-contribute them back into the super system.

An SMSF is a very attractive superannuation savings vehicle but it also comes with plenty of responsibility for anyone that signs up to being a trustee.

In this article we will look at how life insurance inside super works, ideal cover, premiums, claims and taxes, and get the thoughts of an independent financial adviser on how life insurance in super can be effective for estate planning.

SMSF trustees need to assess whether each member of their fund has an appropriate level of insurance. In this article we look at whether there are benefits having insurance inside your SMSF rather outside your super fund.