New decade; Dealing with debt, Disasters and Super, Donations and more

In Financial Planning we tend to focus on short, medium- and long-term client goals and objectives.

Short term goals tend to be 12-24 months, medium-term a decade, and long-term goals to retirement, a lifetime, or inter-generational.

From a medium-term perspective, it is often good to look  backwards to understand just how quickly deferring savings decisions can pass, and why time in the market rather than market timing is so important.

If you would like to sit down to review your last 10 years, and update your current plan for the next short- or long-term goals for you or any other family members, we hope this newsletter gives you some reason to make this decade a financial success.

Unfortunately, the year has started with both tragedy and personal triumph with bush fires, wild storms sweeping our great country as well as a deadly virus breakout at this stage in parts of Asia.

Australians have reached deep into their pockets to assist those impacted, particularly those who have been left homeless, lost businesses, loved ones, or live in a community that may be in a form of recession for up to a decade in some instances.

Insurance companies have been fielding record levels of claims for fire and storm damage and as advisers we hope the homes, fire and storm randomly selected, were those homes fully insured and a greater percentage than we have seen in many other tragedies or previous catastrophes Insurance whether it be life insurance, income protection insurance, business insurance or just a typical home and contents policy vary dramatically between each other.

Insurance purchased directly and not from a professional is often found to be inadequate only after an event like we have just seen.

Many of our clients have either suffered directly or indirectly and our thoughts are with those impacted and fortunately the better insurers have been fast to act and provide positive outcomes for those under financial stress.

In this newsletter we have discussed numerous subjects, but in relation to those directly impacted by fires, who might not have had insurance, there is scope to get early access to some of your superannuation in certain circumstances.

We have discussed this in brief and offer any friends or families you know that have been impacted with an advice line.

In fact, if you have any questions or queries about how you or your business might be affected by anything you see in this client update, please reach out to our
office for further information.

I hope you enjoy the newsletter and look forward to bringing you more updates as the year progresses, and wish you well for another big year ahead.

We have attached a short schedule so you can assess your own insurances to see if you are happy remaining uninsured in some areas and if not, wish us to assist in plugging the gaps of your own family’s risk.