Are you an outsourced paraplanner?
Whether you’re the only employee of your paraplanning practice, or you lead a paraplanning powerhouse with employees and a hefty bank of clients, outsourced paraplanners share lots of things in common.
You just do.
But here’s the thing: despite the growing number of outsourced paraplanners in the UK these days, opportunities to get together to talk only about things that matter in the outsourced world, are surprisingly few and far between.
Switch off. Show up. Join in.
So, if you’re an outsourced paraplanner, here’s our invitation: at 1pm on Thursday 24 April 2025, set your notifications to ‘do not disturb’, click on the Zoom link in your event invitation and gather with other outsourced paraplanners across the UK for an hour of conversation, ideas and practical insights.
There’s nothing to prepare. Just come along ready to share your answer to one question:
‘What’s on your mind today?’
Spaces are limited. To save a spot hit ‘Book Event’ and look out for the calendar invitation in your inbox.
Following his popular Assembly debut in February, Jon Hall returns to finish his exploration of protection essentials at 1pm on Wednesday 2 April 2025.
And this time it’s the essentials of business protection that the Scottish Widows’ protection expert will be focusing on.
And with good reason.
A Swiss Re report in 2024 claimed that of almost 1.4 million new protection policies sold in the UK in 2023, just 2.8% were related to business protection and relevant life policies. And in a country where 99.8% of the 5.6 million privately owned businesses are SMEs – that’s according to the UK Government data – it doesn’t half seem like there’s a BIG business protection gap in the UK. (The source of those stats, you ask? See below.)
The chances are you’ll have business owners among your clients. And plenty of you run your own businesses as outsourced and freelance paraplanners.
So what happens when someone running a business becomes critically ill or dies? What steps can you take to address the risk? How do you start a conversation about business protection?
Tune in to hear Jon as he shares his expertise on:
- The business protection gap and what this means for SMEs
- How to start meaningful conversations with business owners about their protection needs
- Technically, what’s essential for robust business continuity planning?
- The range of solutions available – from key person and loan protection to shareholder protection and relevant life cover
- What’s the difference between shareholder and option agreements?
- What’s the role of trusts as part of business protection arrangements?
- Tax and efficiencies for businesses and individuals
Whether you want to develop your knowledge or make sure clients with business have the right plans in place, you’ll find this Assembly really valuable.
Sound interesting? Then save your spot now and we’ll see you there.
PS. Is CPD available? Of course it is.
Oh and the source of those stats? Turn to page 3 in Scottish Widows’ The Business Protection Opportunity.
If you don’t feel all that confident about annuities, you’re not alone.
Once the default choice of guaranteed income in retirement for generations of UK pension savers, for a whole bunch of reasons, annuities had been falling out of favour for year and years.
Why annuities matter again
Higher interest rates and inflation have led to a revival of interest in securing certainty of income in retirement.
The trouble is that an emerging generation of paraplanners – and a sizeable chunk of the more established paraplanning population – had barely any recent experience of annuities.
So we invited Andy Powell from Standard Life to join us to explain:
- How annuities work
- What drives annuity rates
- The practical differences between pension annuities and purchased life annuities
- Why different providers offer different rates for similar circumstances
Tailoring annuities to client needs
During this Assembly, Andy explores the different ways annuities can be designed to meet sifferent requirements. For instance:
- Rising payments: increasing the amount clients receive each year in retirement
- Safety nets: making sure payments continue for at least 5 or 10 years, even if you die
- Family protection: keeping payments going for your partner or someone else after you die
- Money-back features
Andy also covers newer developments like fixed-term annuities and platform-based solutions that let clients combine secure income with investment flexibility without splitting pension assets across different providers.
For paraplanners, perhaps one of the most valuable takeaways is understanding enhanced terms where, in contrast to other insurance products, health conditions actually increase and not decrease income.
This practical session will give you paraplanners useful knowledge to help clients weigh up their retirement income options. So why not watch or listen now?
The way pensions are treated for inheritance tax (IHT) is set for a big shake up in April 2027 when unused pension funds will count as part of a client’s estate and become liable to IHT.
In preparation for the change, the government announced a consultation on the liability, reporting and payment of IHT at last October’s Budget.
That consultation ended late in January 2025. But what are its conclusions likely to be? And what do paraplanners need to know so you, your firm and its clients are ready when the reforms go live?
What do you and your clients need to know?
Those are the questions that M&G‘s head of technical, Les Cameron, addressed when he joined us for an online Assembly to explores what the changes could mean for paraplanners and your clients (or clients of clients if you’re outsourced or freelancing).
What you can expect to take away from this Assembly?
Together with Assembly host Richard Allum, Les shared his thoughts on how the new IHT framework will affect pension death benefits after 2027. The conversation to covered things like:
- Whether it makes sense to think about taking money out of pensions earlier than planned
- Why bypass trusts might be making a comeback
- How the pension reforms could affect red-amber-green assessment
- Practical steps paraplanners can take now to prepare for the changes
Stop press: post-event answers to questions raised in the chat
There were loads of questions from paraplanners in the chat but, because we ran out of time, Les posted his responses to them in this thread at The Big Tent.
Are you an outsourced paraplanner?
Whether you’re the only employee of your paraplanning practice, or you lead a paraplanning powerhouse with employees and a hefty bank of clients, outsourced paraplanners share lots of things in common.
You just do.
But here’s the thing: despite the growing number of outsourced paraplanners in the UK these days, opportunities to get together to talk only about things that matter in the outsourced world, are surprisingly few and far between.
Switch off. Show up. Join in.
So, if you’re an outsourced paraplanner, here’s our invitation: at 10am on Thursday 27 February 2025, set your notifications to ‘do not disturb’, click on the Zoom link in your event invitation and gather with other outsourced paraplanners across the UK for an hour of conversation, ideas and practical insights.
There’s nothing to prepare. Just come along ready to share your answer to one question:
‘What’s on your mind today?’
Spaces are limited. To save a spot hit ‘Book Event’ and look out for the calendar invitation in your inbox.
Do you find that, even though you spend each and every day working on financial plans for clients, you hardly ever get mixed up in protection?
Well you’re not alone. Because despite being a foundational long-term financial security, for paraplanners, the topic of protection often takes a back seat compared to consideration of investment and retirement strategies.
Which invites the question: what happens to that carefully crafted financial plan if a client’s income falls or they’re faced with the financial consequences of a bout of serious illness or worse?
In other words, what does every self-respecting paraplanner need to know to make sure their clients plans don’t unravel when the unexpected happens unexpectedly?
Protection: get up to speed
To find out tune into the recording of this Assembly held online on 5 February 2025 when Jon Hall, protection specialist at Scottish Widows, joined us to explore protection essentials for paraplanners.
Whether you’re new to protection or need a refresher, the recording of this session will help you understand:
- Why protection deserves a place in holistic financial planning (and how to make the case for it)
- Current trends in the protection market and how to tackle common misconceptions
- The fundamentals: from product types and processes to remuneration options
- Practical tools and technology that can help you research and recommend solutions
What you’ll discover when you tune in
Jon brings real-world experience as both a protection specialist and former adviser focusing on high-net-worth and complex cases. He shares insights on how paraplanners can help build protection into the advice process, even in firms where it hasn’t traditionally been a focus.
Straight after the event, Jon popped over to The Big Tent and created a thread where he answered questions that paraplanners had raised during the gathering but he hadn’t had time to answer live. Be sure to take a look at his responses.
For our very first online Assembly of 2025, we asked whether we’d absolutely definitely seen the back of all the corrective legislation, clear-as-mud HMRC guidance, and lifetime allowance (LTA) limbo that paraplanners, advisers and clients endured for long periods over the previous two years.
So for those who wanted to be certain where things stood, and confirm for themselves that the LTA saga was absolutely definitely over, James Jones-Tinsley from Barnett Waddingham and Transact’s Brian Radbone joined us to put us all straight – once and for all.
Over the course of one lunch hour, James and Brian offered their insights on all the corrections, clarifications and considerations that you could possibly want to know when it comes to the lifetime allowance.
Paraplanners came armed with their questions and comments to share in the chat, and tuned in to hear what our experts – and paraplanners just like them – learned from the saga of the LTA abolition.
A couple of post-event answers
During the event, Colin Stewart of The Paraplanners posed the following question in the chat: ‘If you apply for a transitional tax-free amount certificates (TTFAC), and then fixed protection, can you have the TTFAC recalculated?’. Brian said he’d check and here’s what he found out following the event:
- HMRC’s Newsletter 165 (December 2024) stated that ‘A TTFAC should be cancelled only where the available Lump Sum Allowance (LSA) or the Lump Sum Death Benefit Allowance (LSDBA) is incorrect’. So, if someone obtains FP/IP16 before the deadline and already has a TTFAC, the certificate will become incorrect and must be cancelled. The individual can then reapply with the now correct information.
- It is not possible to withdraw an application either before or after a certificate is issued.
Here’s the relevant bit of the Assembly via Vimeo and Acast if you’re interested in tuning in to the conversation.
Each of us shares an ever more complex and connected planet. One where we’re all facing the consequences of a human-made climate emergency and conflicts. A world of profound inequalities in health, economic and social outcomes between – and within – populations.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that more and more clients are looking for returns that aren’t measured financially, but by effecting positive economic, social and environmental change.
But how many of your clients think this way? And if you did know how many, how confident are you that you can help clients make their social and charitable ambitions part of a practical financial plan?
What you’ll learn from this Assembly
To explore this topic we gathered together three wise people (appropriate for the time of year) to help us:
- look at different ways in which clients can give these days
- why they might want to give in the first place; and
- the evidence that clients do want to give but their advisers don’t seem to realise
Host Richard Allum is joined by pioneering ethical investing advocate and financial planner Jeannie Boyle of EQ Investors, Jack Chellman chief project officer of the innovative Global Returns Project and David McIntosh of chief executive of ShareGift – a brilliant service that has turned the shareholding equivalent of spare change into more than £50 million in donations to UK charities since 1996.
Watch or listen now
Once upon a time, philanthropy was something that only the very wealthiest would consider. But in this season of goodwill – and in a world that doesn’t half need it – find out why that’s no longer true – and how paraplanners can help clients put their money to work in powerfully positive ways more easily than ever before.
Thank you for joining us on 15 November to take your outsourcing game to the next level.
Thanks to the generous support of Assembly supporter, Aegon UK, we were able to team up with coach and consultant Rachael Hurdman to create a workshop where paraplanners could gather to exchange practical insights, knowledge and experience.
We hope you agree it turned out to be a day out of the office that made a real difference to you and your future in outsourcing.
Are you an outsourced paraplanner?
Whether you’re the only employee of your paraplanning practice, or you lead a paraplanning powerhouse with employees and a hefty bank of clients, outsourced paraplanners share lots of things in common.
You just do.
But here’s the thing: despite the growing number of outsourced paraplanners in the UK these days, opportunities to get together to talk only about things that matter in the outsourced world, are surprisingly few and far between.
Switch off. Show up. Join in.
So, if you’re an outsourced paraplanner, here’s our invitation: at 10am on Thursday 12 December 2024, set your notifications to ‘do not disturb’, click on the Zoom link in your event invitation and gather with other outsourced paraplanners across the UK for an hour of conversation, ideas and practical insights.
There’s nothing to prepare. Just come along ready to share your answer to one question:
‘What’s on your mind today?’
Spaces are limited. To save a spot hit ‘Book Event’ and look out for the calendar invitation in your inbox.