With recent changes to capital gains tax rates reaching up to 24% and the CGT annual exemption frozen at just £3,000, many clients are looking for tax-efficient ways to structure their investments.

In his latest ‘Technically speaking’ session for the Paraplanners’ Assembly, Utmost’s Steve Sayer explores how offshore bonds and trust structures work together – offering inheritance tax planning options that provide flexibility for clients who want to be prepared for the ‘what ifs’ of life.

Packed with helpful examples and case studies

Steve brings the options to life with a series of examples of different trust arrangements and how they can be combined.

He’ll show you how discounted gift trusts can provide an immediate reduction in estate value, how loan trusts offer capital access, and why reversionary interest trusts might help hesitant clients take their first steps with inheritance tax planning.

The session includes a detailed case study showing how married clients in their sixties, with £3.5 million in assets, could use multiple trust structures to meet their annual income needs all while reducing their inheritance tax liability.

What’s more, you’ll learn about the planning opportunities that come with non-UK long term residence status and how offshore bonds can keep assets outside the UK inheritance tax net.

And to round off his session, Steve shares a decision-tree approach that you’re bound to find useful when you’re weighing up client needs.

What are the learning outcomes?

Once you’ve watched or listened to this episode, you will:

Once you’ve watched or listened, make sure you grab your CPD

CPD: Take the quiz to receive your certificate

Participants in The Big Day Out 2025 are pictured in a group photo in front of the FarmED farm education centre

Paraplanners from all over the country gathered on Thursday 9 October 2025 at FarmED in rolling Cotswold countryside – the last time the Big Day Out was being at the venue.

An introduction to AI for Paraplanners

Participants were welcomed by The Big Day Out hosts, Aleks Sasin and Chris Wormwell, before Harriet Meyer kicked the day off with An introduction to AI for paraplanners.

What were the big takeaway messages from the session?
Used properly, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini can be powerful tools to aid the writing process that sits at the heart of your role. From client communications to suitability reports, the quality of your written work directly impacts client outcomes and regulatory compliance.

In this highly interactive session, award-winning financial journalist and AI trainer Harriet, cut through the AI hype using hands-on exercises where participants could practice effective prompt design and see real examples of how AI can improve client communications, streamline report writing, and support documentation tasks.

Whether you had never used AI tools, experimented with basic applications, or were already incorporating AI into your workflow but want to improve your technique, Harriet’s session offered lots of opportunities to learn together with paraplanning peers.

Technical pick-and-mix sessions

Ahead of the Big Day Out, participants were invited to pick two hour-long technical and financial planning client scenario sessions (from a choice of four). The topics were:

IHT Planning: Foundation

This session focused on helping participants strengthen foundational understanding of inheritance tax planning, and offer a structured refresher on core principles.

Through an interactive scenario-based discussion, they worked through client situations and explored different approaches, understanding the practical application of IHT planning principles and the trade-offs involved in different strategies. We explored the essential framework of “spend it, gift it, or insure it” and how these principles apply in practice. Issues covered included residence nil rate bands, tapering rules, and gifting allowances, alongside practical solutions like life cover. Participants also touched on the importance of Wills and Powers of Attorney, and even some discussion of deed variations.

IHT Planning: Advanced

This session tackled more complex planning scenarios involving multiple strategies and significant assets. Participants considered the complexities of advanced planning strategies, examining real-world trade-offs and the practical challenges of implementing sophisticated solutions, including the order of gifting, trust planning, and business relief considerations. With pensions now in the IHT net from 2027, the session explored how pension planning intersects with inheritance tax strategy. The session also examined when and how to use different planning tools, and the consequences of getting the sequencing wrong.

Retirement Income Planning: Foundation

If you wanted to strengthen your understanding of retirement income options and, particularly, building confidence around annuity recommendations, this was the session for you. Participants gained a comprehensive grounding in the core retirement income options available to clients with the session covering the fundamentals of drawdown versus annuities, tax-free cash decisions, securing essential income, and how State Pension fits into the picture.

Retirement Income Planning: Advanced

If you are comfortable with retirement income products but wanted to enhance your skills in creating comprehensive, client-focused retirement strategies that meet FCA expectations, then this was the session for you.

Participants explored sophisticated techniques for capturing client requirements, categorising needs into essential, desired, and legacy funds, and creating robust cash flow models. Groups discussed tax wrapper strategies, sequencing risk, and how to build retirement plans that will withstand regulatory scrutiny while truly serving client needs.

Paraplanner share a meal at a wooden picnic benches outdoors in a rural setting. The tables are filled with food and drinks. Behind the diners, farmland stretches to the horizon. In the foreground, a stone wall adds rustic charm. Foliage frames the scene, including vivid orange berries.
Your career, your choice: Designing your professional future

Paraplanner Zara Okoro invited participants to explore what really drives you professionally, where your strengths lie, and how to turn sector changes into career opportunities. Using a framework, Zara asked the Assembly to break out into groups of four and work through a series of questions which participants could use as lenese to explore where they are in their career today, and what they want to do next.

Whether you were early in your career or well-established, this session worked for anyone ready to take ownership of their professional development.

The ideal session for heading home knowing where to focus your efforts and how your future career growth could benefit both you and your employer.

The Assembly

Led by Big Day Out hosts Aleks Sasin and Chris Wormwell, and observing the Chatham House Rule, this open session handed the floor over to participants. Whether you wanted to dig deeper into topics covered earlier, raise something completely new, or simply pick the brains of the experts and fellow paraplanners in the room – it was entirely up to participants.

paraplanners and we also welcome administrators, so if you are not one please don’t book a ticket. If you’re still really interested in coming along then get in touch with us at [email protected].

The choices clients make during the 5-10 years either side of retirement can decide how comfortable they’ll be once they stop working.

In fact, it’s such a distinctive stage in our financial lives that, among a growing number of advice professionals, it’s known as the ‘retirement risk zone’.

The data says – and you’ll know this yourself – that clients tend to become more risk-averse on their approach to retirement. Yet the likelihood of longer lifespans – and the costs associated with it – mean that ‘playing it safe’ could actually prove to be risky.

What’s more, persistent economic uncertainty and instability, not forgetting the FCA’s retirement income review exposing gaps in advice quality, means hatching a plan that helps clients swerve unnecessary risks around retirement has never been more important.

Zone in on the risks in one lunch hour

In this online Assembly Connor Stewart from Standard Life joins host, Richard Allum, to explore the features of the retirement risk zone.

Together they consider the risks that can trip clients up – things like the shift from accumulation to decumulation, sequencing returns, and adapting to changing financial priorities in an uncertain world – before considering practical ways to tackle them.

Tune in now

Listen and you’ll hear practical ideas to help guide clients through one of the trickiest phases of their financial lives. So how about it? Fancy zoning in on retirement risk? Then tune in now.

What knowledge, experience and skills will help you get hired? And, once you are hired, how will you know you’ve actually made the right choice?

Whether you want to get into paraplanning, are just starting out, or know someone who would love to get their break, this online Assembly – recorded on 9 July 2025 – is jam-packed with insights on making your move into paraplanning.

Hear for yourself how our guests took their unique paths into paraplanning

Host Caroline Stuart is joined by paraplanning guests Chris Wormwell, Ceetal Katechia and Kez Condy, plus personal development expert Sarah Purves of Aegon.

Over the course of one podcast, you’ll discover how each of our paraplanners took very different routes into the profession.

One is a former barista who swapped one daily grind for another kind altogether. Then there’s the university marketer who yearned to change career. Finally, there’s the ex-administrator who set their heart on changing lanes into paraplanning.

Among the topics covered are

Let’s be honest, how many of us can claim that we had our careers sussed out from day one? So don’t miss this fantastic chance to listen, learn and take your first step into paraplanning.

Don’t forget your CPD

Once you’ve listened to this Assembly, you can request a certificate for 1½ hours CPD. Just follow the link below.


Thank you Aegon

This online Assembly would not be possible without the generous support of Aegon. Thank you to the team at Aegon for supporting this Assembly – and for backing the development of paraplanners and paraplanning in the UK through their support of the Paraplanners’ Assembly.

Now don’t take this the wrong way, but is there a chance that last time you put together recommendations or financial plans for a woman, the approach was unknowingly influenced by assumptions that generally apply to a man?

As paraplanners, we have the power to directly influence financial outcomes that are better for women – whether we’re reviewing fact finds, drafting recommendations, or creating financial plans.

But are we truly creating plans for the individuals in front of us? Or are we unwittingly relying on conventional thinking and assumptions which are actually more likely to be rooted in men’s experiences rather than women’s?

It matters because, more often than not, women’s financial lives are very different to men’s. So to deliver genuinely effective financial planning, it’s important to understand the differences and how to adapt our approach.

A chance to challenge your thinking

In the recording of this online Assembly, host Sam Tonks invited Sam Secomb of Women’s Wealth and Susan Hope of Scottish Widows to explore how paraplanners can better understand and address the unique financial planning needs of women.

Together, they discussed women’s distinctive financial journeys and the stark disparities that exist – including the startling 30 per cent gender pension gap – and asked how paraplanners can help create better financial outcomes for female clients. During the session Sam, Susan and Sam discuss

– what makes women’s financial experience so different from men’s
– the real-world impact of the ‘parenthood penalty’ on long-term financial planning
– our assumptions about vulnerabilities, risk profiles and investment preferences
– practical strategies paraplanners can implement to better serve female clients

What will you learn from this Assembly?

You’ll gain actionable insights that we’re certain will help you improve your paraplanning approach, challenge conventional thinking and assumptions, and help deliver more tailored financial plans for your female clients.

Plus, you’ll discover practical tools and ideas so you’re equipped to improve financial outcomes for women right away.

Interested? Then tune in now.

Promotional image for "An informal Assembly for outsourced paraplanners". An online gathering in Zoom from 1-2 pm on Thursday 19 June 2025.

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 19 June 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.

Promotional image for "An informal Assembly for outsourced paraplanners". An online gathering in Zoom from 1-2 pm on Thursday 24 April 2025.

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.

From April 2025, the rules determining who pays UK inheritance tax are changing. 

Instead of the complex domicile rules, a new ‘long-term residency’ test will decide whether someone’s worldwide assets fall into the IHT net.

Discover what’s changing

In this episode, Utmost’s international technical sales manager, Steve Sayer, explores how the new rules could affect clients in a range of scenarios – whether they’re UK residents planning to retire abroad or people returning home after years overseas.

Using worked examples, Steve demonstrates how changes affect trust planning, and explains when trusts might shift between excluded and relevant property status. He also touches on the implications of pension death benefits becoming subject to IHT from 2027.

Who is this Assembly for?

Whether you’re already dealing with cross-border IHT planning or want to understand how these changes might create new planning opportunities, this session is a great way to get to grips with the new framework.

What are the learning outcomes?

By the end of this podcast, you’ll understand the post April 2025 changes to:

Once you’ve listened, make sure you grab your CPD

CPD: Take the quiz to receive your certificate

Want to learn more? Then tune in 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:

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.

Promotional image for "An informal Assembly for outsourced paraplanners". An online gathering in Zoom from 10-11 am on Thursday 10 February 2025.

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.