Planning for the Future
Financial planning can benefit everyone, so it’s never too late (or too early) to talk to Don Brown. By gaining an understanding of your circumstances and goals, Don Brown can develop appropriate strategies to meet your ongoing objectives, whether these are short-term (such as saving for your children’s education), or long-term (such as retiring comfortably). A key to meeting your goals is ensuring that the strategy is specifically suited to your situation. Don Brown is client-focused and will ensure that the strategy implemented is the right one for you and is tailored to your situation. Of course, one of the things that influences the strategy is where you are in your life journey.

Wealth Protection Insurance
One of the most important parts of your ongoing financial plan is Wealth Protection. Saving and building wealth is of course very important, but all your hard work could be jeoparised without adequate risk insurance in place. Appropriate risk insurance can ensure that you and your family are well looked after should an unforseen event occur. What would happen if you are injured, fall ill or die? Would you be able to meet the medical expenses involved? How would your family cope without you? Don Brown is a Risk Insurance specialist who can review your situation to determine your risk insurance requirements and arrange appropriate cover, such as Income Protection, Life Insurance, Total Permanent Disability (TPD) and Critical Illness (Trauma).

Income Protection

Income Protection insurance will pay you a regular income stream in the event that you are unable to work for a period of time due to illness or injury. Income Protection insurance is extremely important as it can ensure that you:

Are able to continue meeting your living expenses, should you be unable to work for a period of time.

Can continue meeting interest repayments on loans, such as a mortgage or investment loan.

Are not forced to sell down some of your assets to meet expenses
Income Protection insurance can replace up to 75% of your gross salary income and may continue paying you until age 65 (depending on the terms of your insurance contract). Some policies even allow you to insure your Superannuation Guarantee (employer) contributions, so that you have funds paid into super whilst on claim.

Income Protection premiums are usually tax deductible, so paying for the peace of mind that Income Protection provides can be surprisingly affordable.

Life Insurance

Life Insurance will pay your dependants (or Estate) a lump sum in the event of your death. Life Insurance can be used to protect your loved ones by:

Allowing them to repay any outstanding debt.

Providing them with funds that can be invested to generate an ongoing income.

Provide funds to children to meet future costs, such as education expenses or a home deposit.

Life Insurance can give you the peace of mind that your loved ones will be protected should you pass away.

Total & Permanent Disability (TPD) cover

Total & Permanent Disability (TPD) cover will pay you a lump sum in the event that you are unable to work again, due to permanent disability. TPD payments can be used to:

Critical Illness (Trauma) Insurance

Critical Illness (sometimes called Trauma cover) will pay a lump sum in the event that you suffer a specific illness, such as heart attack, cancer or stroke. Critical Illness can be used to:

Many people think of superannuation as something that only those approaching retirement should think about. However, super will be a large source of retirement wealth for many Australians, so it is important to consider strategies that can maximise this wealth, regardless of whether you’re young and starting out or ready to retire. By implementing the right strategies and investing your super wisely, you can are increase the likelihood of a comfortable and independant retirement.

Why invest more into Super?
One of the main benefits of investing in super is that there are several tax benefits involved. Perhaps the most important is that the tax payable on earnings on assets held within super is up to 15%, which can be lower than the tax paid on assets held in your personal name outside of super (this can be up to 46.5%)

When you retire and commence a pension paid from your super fund, there is a nil tax rate on assets in the fund, making super extremely tax-effective for retirees.

Contributing more to Super
One of the simplest ways of building up your super benefits is by contributing more to super. However, there are different types of super contributions and your Don Brown can guide you in the right direction to ensure that you benefit fully.

Salary Sacrificing
– most employees have the opportunity to salary sacrifice into super. This is where, instead of receiving part of your salary as cash income into your bank account, that portion of your salary is payed by your employer into super as extra contributions. The main benefit of salary sacrificing is that the contributions are taxed at 15% as they enter the super fund, instead of being taxed at your Marginal Tax Rate (which can be as high as 46.5%). So, if you are on a Marginal Tax Rate that is higher than 15%, you could potentially benefit from a salary sacrifice strategy.

Deductible Super Contributions

Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF)
For those who wish to have greater control over their super, or increased flexibility, a SMSF may be appropriate. However, this extra control and flexibility comes with extra responsibility. A SMSF is not suitable for everyone, and Don Brown will be able to refer you to a SMSF specialist,should you be interested.

Government Assistance
The Australian Government provides substantial support to Australians through Centrelink. For retirees, this assistance is mainly in the form of the Age Pension. The Age Pension is designed to provide income support to Australians who cannot fully support themselves financially in retirement.

Age Pension recipients may also be eligible to receive the Pensioner Concession Card, which provide a wide range of benefits, including discounts on public transport, utilities and pharmaceuticals.

Other Centrelink support available to retirees includes the Comonwealth Seniors Health Care Card, which provides a host of benefits, such as discounts on public transport, utilities and pharmaceuticals. Retirees who do not receive the Age Pension may be eligible to recieve the Card, depending on their income.

Determining the level of Centrelink support you are entitled to can be a complex calculation. Also, there are strategies available that can potentially increase your level of Centrelink support. Don Brown can assist you through this process.

Wealth Creation

Wealth creation is not just about deciding where to invest your funds; it is also about devising strategies that will meet your long-term financial goals. There are various strategies and principles that Don Brown may adopt to help you build your wealth over time.

Starting a Savings Plan
It can often be difficult to keep track of expenses and most people find that they have very little left at the end of the month for savings. As a result, we find that many of our clients benefit from setting up a regular savings plan. Rather than waiting to see how much you have left for investment at the end of each month, a regular savings plan is a strategy where you invest part of your salary before other expenses.

The great thing about a regular savings plan is that it us a disciplined way of saving, as you can organise for a set amount to be deducted from your bank account or salary each month for investment. In addition, the sooner you start saving the better, as it means you’ll have longer for the effects of compounding to take effect.

Savings plans can be used for a host of goals, including saving for children’s education cost, for a home deposit, or on that dream holiday you’ve been wanting.

Budgeting and Managing Cashflow
One of the simplest, yet effective strategies in building long-term wealth and meeting future goals is to review your Budget and Cashflow. This can help to meet future lifestyle and financial goals by:

Asset Allocation and Diversification
One of the most common investment sayings is “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. What that basically means is that you should diversify your investments. There are many ways of diversifying, however arguably one of the most important is by investing in different asset classes.

This is because asset classes have different features and often perform differently at various points in the economic cycle, so that when one asset class is underperforming, a complementary asset class offsets this through strong performance.

Historically, we can see that it is extremely rare for a particular asset class to be the best performer two years in a row. It is even more difficult to predict which asset class will be the best performer next year. So, rather than trying to pick between the asset classes, the safest strategy is to diversify between them. Asset classes include:

Don Brown can carefully assess your attitudes to risk, so that the blend of assets recommended to you are is a mix that you’re comfortable with.

Managed Funds
Managed funds are one of the most efficient ways of investing your savings. This is because within a managed fund you can indirectly access a wide range of individual investments, even with as little as $1,000. For example, an Australian share managed may invest in up to 60 or more individual Australian companies, which provides an excellent way of diversifying into the Australian share market.

There are also managed funds available that allow you to invest in all of the major asset classes listed above, all within the one fund.