Investing for your future goals

Research suggests that people who write their goals down are 42% more likely to achieve them than those with unwritten goals, and individuals who set actionable tasks and report progress to a supportive peer achieve their goals 40% faster.

Now, I'm sure you're used to setting SMART goals for your career and perhaps around personal health and fitness targets. Well, it's no different when it comes to your personal finances. Knowing what you want to achieve and why and putting specific targets and frames around those objectives will help you stay motivated and on track.

We'll talk you through how we work with individuals to build clearly defined and measurable financial goals and adapt them for life, economic, and legal, and tax changes that will no doubt pop up along the way. And we certainly don't need to look too far for examples of tax and legal changes with the UK budget now announced for 26 of November and the rumor mill already in full flow.

We'll touch on some of those rumors throughout today's session, and I've included a link to register for the post-budget analysis webinar in the Q&A, or at least, I will do in just a second. And that webinar will be taking place at 8:30 on the 27th of November, the morning after the budget.

I'm Helen Perrin. I head up WTW Individual Financial Planning group. We're a team of regulated financial planners who provide education, guidance and advice to support individuals in managing their personal finances. I'm joined by Paul Gordon and Rory Stuart today to senior financial planners at atomos, experts at working with individuals to define and quantify their goals and adapt their financial plans to stay on track. Welcome, Paul and Rory.

And atomos is a financial planning and wealth management firm with which WTW has a strategic Alliance. Our Alliance with atomos gives us access to 60 experienced financial planners across the UK, like Rory and Paul, and provides atomos individual clients with access to our best investment ideas through the atomos portfolios managed by WTW's investments line of business.

Rory is going to start us off today by exploring the importance of having clearly defined goals and how you can turn generic financial goals into specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound targets.

Now, time frame for investment is such an important factor when deciding on appropriate investments for your money. Having short-, medium-, and long-term goals will help you decide on an appropriate asset allocation for your investments, so how much to have in equities, bonds, cash and other assets, and also which investment vehicles or tax wrappers might be available to you.

Paul is going to talk through some rules of thumb and focus on different types of risk, not just capital risk that can sometimes throw us off track. Now, ultimately, goals allow us to stay focused on what we want to achieve to cut through all the noise and avoid emotional decision making. So we'll share evidence of why short-term reactions to the market and economic conditions very rarely pay off, and how clear goals which have been stress tested can help us stay focused.

So hopefully, by the end of today's webinar, we'll have convinced you to review your financial goals to see if you can make them SMARTer, and we'll share some useful resources to help you review your goals and signpost options for individual support for those of you who'd like to have some additional help with setting and meeting your financial goals.

Just a few housekeeping points before I hand over to Rory to get started, and we will be sharing a recording from today's webinar together with a copy of the slides and a useful resource sheet with links to information to help you with your short- and long-term savings goals.

And because we are recording today's session, you will all been brought into the webinar with cameras off and microphones muted. We do welcome your questions, so please use the Q&A function to ask any questions that you have, and you'll find that at the top of your screen in the middle. Now the default when you ask a question is your name will show.

But if you prefer to post your question anonymously, you can toggle to an anonymous option. Whichever option you choose, please don't share lots of personal information in today's session as we can't give you advice today. There are processes we would need to follow for that, but we will do our best to answer any more general questions that you have.

And if you need extra support, as I say, we'll explain how to sign up for our individual guidance service and for a free initial consultation with atomos if you're considering taking financial advice. Over to you, Rory.

RORY STUART: Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here today. As Helen mentioned, what I and Paul will be covering today, it's probably one of the most powerful tools that you can use to take control of your future, and that's goal setting and why they matter.

So we'll show you some examples of real life financial goals, how to make them SMART and SMARTer, how to assess and protect your progress along the way. So we want you to walk away today feeling not just informed but inspired to take action.

After today's webinar, we want you to go home or back to your desk to start writing down specific SMART objectives and how you're going to achieve them, whether that's through guidance in the workplace or financial planning.

Now, specifically, I love this quote myself-- "A goal without a plan is just a wish." Now, we all have wishes, whether that's to retire early and travel the world, buy our dream home. But unless we turn those wishes into specific, actionable plans, they'll rarely come true.

So today, we'll learn how to turn your wishes into plans and plans into outcomes. Now, before we go further, in financial services, we see many labels. We see financial advisor, wealth manager, wealth planner, and financial planner amongst a few. However, it's important to understand the difference between financial advice and financial planning.

Here at atomos, we're financial planners. Financial advice is typically about a specific decision. For example, which pension or investment product to choose for your circumstances? Maybe you want to invest a specific amount of money, could be a general investment account, or is an ISA suitable for you?

Financial planning, it's much, much broader than this. It looks at your entire financial picture, whether that be income, expenses, savings, tax, risk, estate planning, and it creates a strategy to reach your goals over time.

Now, on the next slide, the five stages of financial planning are as follows-- number one, define SMART goals, SMART, as Helen said before, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, and we'll come back to that again shortly. Number two, assess and protect your current position. Number three, match suitable strategies and investments to your circumstances. Number four, progress, monitor progress regularly. And number five, adjust when life changes.

I always say that financial advice is a single puzzle piece, and planning is putting the whole puzzle together. It's not about spreadsheets and calculators. It's about building the life you want step by step. If you're to build a new house today, you won't start building a house without a blueprint or plan. So why would you build your life without one?

Of those five steps in financial planning, between I and Paul, we're going to look at each of these. Explain how we can make your goals real. Before we do that, though, we'd just like to complete a quick poll for those watching today. And that poll is would you say you have SMART objectives currently in place or not? I'll give everyone 15, 20 seconds to complete this.

Now, what I can see from the results of the poll so far is that there's a handful of insurers, and there's quite a considerable note, which is to be expected. So what, first of all, to do is define what SMART goal is. SMART goals are the foundation of any good financial planning. So it stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Instead of saying, I want to save more, SMART goal would be I want to save at least 500 pounds a month for the next five years to build a 30,000 pounds deposit to buy a second home, for instance, or buy my first home. It gives you clarity, focus and accountability. And that's when results will happen.

Now, on the slide in front of you, you'll be able to see some common life goals that when we work with clients, we see similar themes come up time and time again. A lot of people will say to us, well, our goal is a comfortable retirement. Could be paying for education costs for providing a legacy to our loved ones.

And a really important point worth noting here is what's interesting is whilst the goals are common, the plans are always unique because everyone's circumstances are different. What's right for you doesn't necessarily make it right for the person next to you.

Now, in regards to SMART financial goals, think about SMART objectives and goals as the whys and the hows of the wants. So having a quick look at the first one here, a comfortable retirement. Well, to make that SMART we can then say actually, I need 60,000 a year from age 60 increasing with inflation. Now, that is on paper a SMART goal, but it can be SMARTer.

So go back to what I just mentioned, the why and how of the want. Well, the want is 60,000 pounds per annum. The why, well, let's break that down. 30,000 could be core expenditure i.e. household Bills, food maintenance or property.

The additional 30,000 could be for luxuries such as a new car every five years, annual holiday spends of 20,000. The how, and this is where planners can help, is from what you've done so far, how can we achieve that SMART objective. So in this example, it would be effectively a withdrawal or a retirement income strategy.

Now, going on to the education one, again, look at making that goal SMART. Well my children's education will cost $40,000 a year from 2025 through to 2035, increasing at 6% per annum. Now, that is a SMART objective, and we can't really make that any SMARTer from a legacy perspective.

Again, I'd like to leave 300,000 pounds in today's terms to each of my children. That's a good start, but it's not quite a SMART goal or objective. So we can effectively make it SMART and SMARTer. So we define exactly what we want. So if we're going to go through the SMART goal, let's be specific. I want to leave 300,000 pounds after tax to each of my two children.

Well, it's measurable. We know what we're tracking. Well, we know that's going to be 600,000 pounds in total, adjusted for inflation, 3% a year. Now, is it achievable? Does it fit and align with your current income assets and savings capacity? Again, is it relevant? Does it align with any other priorities you have, such as retirement income or helping children out sooner?

Time-bound, is there a set date? Is that a date of death, or would you consider it sooner? Could it be by age 85, for instance? Whilst setting any SMART goals or objectives, it's really important to evaluate and review the progress every year.

Are you on track based on your portfolio growth and tax changes? What's happened in the past 12 months? Do we need to review it going forward? Do we need to adjust for any life events, tax legislation changes, or changing family circumstances?

So going back to each of those SMARTer objectives, notice how each of them are now precise. You know the amount, the time frame and the purpose. So by doing all these it can turn a simple wish into a living plan. You can act upon measure and adapt over time.

Now, on to the next slide, going back to the hows of the wants, well, how do we get to achieving your goals? So the first thing we do-- sorry, the second thing we do is once we've defined those goals and objectives. It's assess and protect your current position. So what income do you currently have? What income do you expect in the future? What assets do you currently have at the moment?

Are there any other assets you're expecting? It could be an inheritance. It could be a gift from parents, any share schemes that are coming to fruition. What's your current capacity to save? And what capacity do you have for the future? And equally important, what risks can derail you?

Now, that could be health risks, inflation, tax changes, market and political risks. These are all things we need to plan for and can plan for as well. So think of a financial plan and SMART objectives as building a safety net under your goals. So now, that we've defined SMART goals, assessed and protected your current position, Paul will now look at matching suitable strategies and investments.

PAUL GORDON: Thanks, Rory. Can we have the next slide, please, Helen. Possibly not. Helen was having some IT issues very early on. There we go. Thank you, Helen. I'm lucky enough to get to talk through a few slides where we can see what's been happening over a period of about 20 years in each of them.

But what it tries to illustrate here is that there are differences. There are differences in types of risk. One enormous factor Rory mentioned it earlier on is time. If we look at the graph here, clearly, global equities have outperformed the likes of inflation and in cash considerably.

However, cash is incredibly important. If we go right back to the objectives that Rory mentioned, school fees, school fees are typically due termly three times a year. So some of you may well have just paid the September fees, sadly, with BIT now added.

If you held that money within the markets and the markets dropped the day before that payment was due, that's not clearly very good news. So for that type of arrangement and that type of objective, holding cash absolutely works.

In fact, from an emergency fund perspective, we'd suggest somewhere between three and six months of essential expenditure is held within cash. That could be within a bank account, premium bonds, or somewhere similar.

For those school fees, well, actually, several years of school fees could be held within cash. You look to map out fixed rate arrangements or just the highest interest rate accounts we could find. But longer-term, one of the objectives was retirement and comfortable retirement.

If you look at the green graph or green line on the screen, if your retirement planning was invested purely within cash that 20-year period, you can see that it's actually been outperformed by inflation.

Inflation figures out for last month, RPI 4.6%, CPI 3.8%, they're still considerably higher than the Bank of England would like. We're seeing interest rates just sneak up from a mortgage perspective as well. So inflation is still here.

The pressures remain and therefore taking the time frame over which you're looking to achieve some of your objectives is crucial. If we refer to the actual graph with the equities, you can see that the markets will often have blips on a rolling basis. This year's most publicized blip was clearly Donald Trump announcing tariffs.

That was on April the 2nd, and I took two phone calls that day, one from a person in a garage, a Skoda garage buying a Skoda Enyaq, which I think will resonate with me for years. They were buying it. They wanted to buy it from their investments.

It was not planned, fair to say. But actually, the conversation moved forward to well, hang on, the markets have dropped. Should we be taking money out now or not? And actually, they ended up arranging finance. The figure will stay 157,000 pounds per month, and they're clearing it in October.

Now, ironically, they ended up with better servicing as a result of that. But actually, it was about understanding that the markets had dipped. It would have been better had that been held in cash that purchase. But what best to do? And what typically happens is those that are brave enough to remain because it's part of the longer-term plan often have outperformed over time.

One really interesting note from earlier this year, Bloomberg confirmed that within the UK, we have 33% of our investable assets within cash, the green line on this screen. In the US, it's just 15.

Whether that suggests that the US understands investment over a longer time are not so sure, but it's a considerable difference, a third of our investable assets are held within cash. Considerably lower for the US. But there are a number of factors to be aware of.

So actually, if we look forward to how holding your nerve and sticking to your individualized plan can impact, this is a fantastic graph that illustrates, on the left-hand side, those that simply remained invested for the same 20-year duration as are shown on that previous slide have outperformed those that tried to time the markets but actually missed out on some of the better days.

And clearly, on the right-hand side of this chart, you can see those that timed the markets incredibly poorly missed the 60 best days within that 20-year period are actually down. But actually, you can see here that had that phone call back in April the 2nd being-- we're coming out.

We're taking everything out of the markets because we're buying a car, and the markets have tumbled. Well, we're now at record highs. So as long as there is a plan in place and going all the way back to making sure it's unique to you and your family, this is for you, not for friends, not what others have done, but it's around your planning.

We would like to retire with 60,000 pounds a year. Well, actually, the age and time horizon there was mentioned at age 60. But if you achieve that at 59, you're working by choice. Good news. We've got 60,000 a year already. But actually, I'll carry working. I can build up greater reserves or the reverse. 59, I'll retire now.

And holding your nerve, but also understanding the implications, inflation is a risk. Cash short-term, without question, wonderful, but inflation has eroded the buying power of your cash. Behavioral issues following others, April the 2nd, but also, last year pre-budget, lots of people around the UK withdrew tax-free lump sums from their private pensions because of rumor, confirmed them by HMRC that those that did take out their lump sums couldn't put them back in.

So those following those rumors, those following others without the information, without definitive direction from government legally but also from government in terms of planning were impacted. And for some that will be a negative. Others will have spent the money on having some fun, gifted it to children or whatever it may have been.

But if they copied a friend because that's what they were doing, it may not have been the best outcome for them and likewise for you. Our role, from a planning perspective, is just to try and map out where you are but also where you're heading. Next slide, please, Helen.

And this is evidenced in terms of cash flow modeling. For those of you that have experienced cash flow modeling, I hope you found it very useful. What it allows is not only us and you to factor in the plans. We mentioned school fees. So school fees over a 10-year duration, well, they span both short-term and quite long-term retirement.

Well, hopefully that's for a lengthy retirement way beyond age 60. In this example, it's making sure that along the way it can be achieved. And actually, if you just look at how this is modeled through on the left-hand side in the blue, you can see there is a black line that goes through it. That's expenditure.

And you can see it drops off with retirement. It drops off with the ending of school fees. Likewise, for those of you with mortgages, with second property mortgages or any form of finance, once that liability is cleared, the expenditure will reduce.

For some, retirement is about spending more time with family. For others, it's around travel. For those that are new grandparents, that changes everything, presents everywhere and all manner. I'm not sure that could ever be modeled for new grandparents.

But what is important is-- this will evolve with you and your family. If you are lucky enough to have grandchildren in the future, well, it could well be that you'd like to make a gift to them. It could well be that you'd like to fund their education.

Include that within the modeling. Include both the good news, grandchildren coming along. Include the difficult times, something catastrophic with health, a horrible example of that Chris Hoy, a wonderful Olympian, a wonderful sportsman, a wonderful statesman, actually, devastating news. It was four years ago, four years ago, that he had between two and four years to live. Thankfully, he's still here. But actually, that would have changed and his family's goals.

We mentioned earlier on about leaving a legacy to the children. OK, so we may well have run these numbers so it fits relatively neatly. You can see on the right-hand side of the screen there, we have 615,000 left. Good news. We wanted to give the children, and we only have two children in this example, but we're giving them 300,000 each. Well, that almost marries up perfectly.

Well, hang on. Would you like to make those gifts sooner? We know the rules right now around potentially exempt transfers. And a seven-year time horizon before that falls outside of the estate. We don't know what may happen within the budget, whether or not anything around that will change.

But equally taking that a step further, well, would you actually like to keep it? Would you like to protect yourselves in terms of should you need long term care or similar? It's about evolving the document on a rolling basis and then just continuing to review things, making sure that should anything occur that could impact you, be it a change of role, be it health, be it lifestyle, be it tax, the budget will be interesting, that session on the 27th of November.

Could be an interesting breakfast, but if there is something that impacts you, it's making sure that you model muddle through and make sure that it can still work. Your plan can remain on track, regardless of short-term dips. Now Helen's got some rather helpful resources that we can share.

HELEN PERRIN: Thank you, Paul, and thanks, Rory, as well. And I'm sure that's given us lots to think about and a nudge to review our financial goals. And I guess it's now over to you all to take the next step. So to help with that, we will send a recording of today's webinar plus a copy of the slides and a useful resource sheet, which will signpost some further sources of information on saving and investing for the short and long term.

And as I said, for those of you who would welcome some individual support, we also have our individual guidance service and the option of advice from atomos. So we'll just explain a little bit about how each of those work for you and signpost you in the right direction.

So in the individual financial guidance service from WTW is available to select on Flexmart, our flexible benefits platform as an any time event. Guidance is delivered by our regulated financial planning team, and the service is intended to help you with your financial planning at a strategic level, so perhaps a lower cost entry level option to supporting your financial goals.

And we can't give you specific advice and recommendations through that, but we can help you set and review your goals and check that you're on track, and we can make suggestions for improvements as long as we don't go into specific financial recommendations.

If you do want specific financial recommendations or ongoing wealth management, Paul will talk you through how to engage with the advice process in just a moment. But just to highlight the cost of that guidance service, so it's 500 pounds. It's an opt-in benefit on Flexmart.

It is tax/NI deductible. So after tax savings, the cost to you will be somewhere between 265 and 360 pounds, depending on your tax position, and you'd usually pay monthly, so 30 pounds a month or less over the tax year.

To attract that tax exemption, we do need to cover an element of retirement planning, so whether that's saving towards retirement at younger age or working out how to best use your pension benefits. So we will make sure that we cover that. But alongside that, we can help with suggestions for other short- and long-term saving goals that you have as well.

And in terms of how to engage with that service, as I say, can elect it on Flexmart. We'll then send you a link to our dedicated online booking tool to allow you to book in a one-hour video call with one of our financial planners. And to prepare for that meeting, we'll ask you to complete a confidential fact find so we can better understand your personal circumstances and objectives.

We'll then make some suggestions based on that fact find and what you tell us in the call, and we'll follow up with a short written summary of topics discussed and actions agreed. But as I mentioned, the difference between that guidance and regulated advice is that we can't provide you with specific personal recommendations for regulated products.

And we wouldn't include things like cash flow modeling as part of that guidance service. So if that sounds more like what you are looking for, Paul will talk you through the process to engage with that for financial advice.

PAUL GORDON: Thanks, Helen. As Helen has neatly outlined for all of us, really, should you need your bespoke financial plan, including the cash flow modeling that I mentioned earlier on, that outlines where you would like to be and how your objectives sit, be it retirement, be it legacy to the children, education costs, or whatever it may, we'll factor that all in and then make recommendations regarding how that can be achieved so that be from additional contributions into your pension, could it simply be ISAs, one consideration for all of you is around the tax efficiencies.

So we'll apply the current tax rules that apply as it stands, and then we'll react to them. So the part that we will evolve is, should there be a budget, should there be a spring statement that makes different amendments to whatever can impact you, we'll react to that.

And then, with regards to the likes of estate planning and also just the portfolio management, making sure that we factor in your risk profiles and time horizons. So as you can see here, there's a QR code that goes directly to a booking page. So you can choose some times that work for you. And we can explore how we can assist you moving forwards.

HELEN PERRIN: Thank you, Paul. So we just had one question so far, which I think was in relation to the slide around equities versus cash versus inflation. That question is, does this suggest that the life cycle strategies are flawed as they approach retirement.

I'll perhaps take this one as a LifeSight member. And so the LifeSight default investment strategies as you get closer to your retirement age, they do still have around 50% equity in place as you get to your retirement age, once you factor in the alternative investments, and so on.

And I guess the idea of that, again, is going back to Paul's summary around if something is coming in the short term want it in a lower risk asset like cash if it's going to be in the next five years and potentially up to 10 years, you might want some bond allocation, for example.

So I think what that life cycle strategy is doing is trying to balance out that once you go into income drawdown, if that's your plan in retirement, some of those liabilities will be in 20, 30 years time. So you want some equity content, and some will be coming up in the immediate future. So you'll want some cash content, and some will be in 10 years time. So there might be a mix or a balance of investments to get the balance of growth and meeting your income needs.

So there are defaults there to help with that. You can also choose your own investments if you want to take a more adventurous approach or a more cautious approach, and what's right for you will depend on your personal circumstances and objectives. And if you want support with that, obviously, we're here to help. And if you're confident to make those decisions, you can choose your own funds as well. Couple more--

PAUL GORDON: Yeah, sorry. There is a further question in, actually. But that's a very good question. And you're exactly right with your answer, inasmuch as, if your LifeSight funds are required to assist your retirement, then actually that still remains valid. But if they're part of your strategy, then having them invested for the longer term, potentially within the market still absolutely works.

So yes, but there is a further question as to whether or not atomos can advise on whether your pension investments are appropriate. Absolutely, yes. So from that point of view, it would be a case of just assessing the individual with regards to an attitude to risk. Are you the most adventurous person we've spoken to or the most cautious or somewhere in between?

Then, going back to time horizon and almost dovetailing in the earlier question around LifeSight and the modeling to de-risk, to move risk from the table, just checking the overall position of the finances.

And as I mentioned, in addition to Helen's answer, if your pension investments are all with LifeSight, and that is going to be your entire retirement income come retirement, well, how does that impact? And what do you need? So yes, it is a short answer, but factoring in your overall position is key.

HELEN PERRIN: Yeah, and I guess what advice allows you to do is look at your overall asset allocation. So pensions will be one part of that. You might have ISAs general investment accounts other investments. And looking at the balance overall and where the growth assets should be held is part of that financial plan.

Another question is, how do we access investment funds without an advisor? Are stocks and shares ISAs the only option, or are there other avenues? Is saving into a pension fund generally more productive due to tax exemptions, or are there other catches? So perhaps that break that down into two questions. So the first one being, how do we access investment funds without an advisor?

I mean, there are self invest platforms available. If you what you're doing, and you're happy choosing your own investments. I guess what the advisor would do is look at what platform is suitable for you, and what suitable underlying investments would match your needs. So there are self-service options. There are advised options. Anything to add to that, Paul, Rory?

PAUL GORDON: Rory, if you'd like.

RORY STUART: Yeah, I can, yeah. So I think the second question on there is the saving into a pension fund generally more productive due to tax exemptions, or are there any other catches? Again, it's going to come down to your personalized goal and objective. It depends on what stage of life you're at as well when you are retired.

Yes, there are tax exemptions with pensions. We're aware of that. You get tax relief as it currently stands at 20%, 40%, 45%, so on your contributions, depending on what tax brackets you're in. But again, it will come down to your personal circumstances.

If you're thinking for a long term to provide you with a retirement fund in the future, yes, pension, absolutely fine, again, more medium-term needs. It could be a stocks and shares ISA. It's about striking the right balance.

I think it's about having effectively a diversified approach between having ISAs and pensions. Pensions aren't accessible until age 57. So if you intend to retire a bit sooner than that, having an alternative pot there available is really important for a lot of people as well.

PAUL GORDON: And perhaps just to add a few words to the answer around, are there other avenues? There absolutely are. Helen's mentioned you can go direct to various providers, and the difference between going direct and using a planner would simply be, you'll be in charge. You'll make your decisions.

Your plan, if you are one of those, and there weren't many actually within the poll earlier on that have mapped out their objectives. But if that is you, and you've mapped out the details and the finer details, I need x by this time, and this time in the future, this is where I'd like to be.

Well, actually, that could work for the majority. Having someone to rely upon that can assist with discussions, making sure that you're aware of. And let's use the budget as the perfect example. If there are changes that come on the 26th of November, that impact, for example, ISA allowances or enterprise investment schemes or venture capital trusts or pensions, all of those have tax efficiencies that work.

Are they the right recommendation for everyone? Absolutely not. And it's trying to make sure that any form of planning that individuals or families have is geared specifically to them, tailored to them because it works. So certainly direct. You can do that. You can do it yourself without question. But for some having planners to assist and understand the overall position and then just work forwards year after year, because when it works, it's wonderful.

I'm actually retiring a year early because we've got to wherever I want it to be. I've paid down the debts. I've cleared this and so on. I've made the gift to the children because we got there sooner. They're great conversations. Disastrous conversations are-- someone has died. They've died intestate without a will. They fallen unwell. They didn't have protection. The debt still remains, and I'd like to retire. And planning tries to avoid all of that occurring.

HELEN PERRIN: Thanks, Paul. Another question has come in. So could atomos modeling flex for the risk of the state pension changing in the future, amount increases in state pension age, or just reactive when changes are announced?

PAUL GORDON: Rory, would you like that one.

RORY STUART: Of course, yeah, so when we're looking at cash flow modeling, we can effectively override assumptions that within the modeling process. So yes, we can do. And I think with regards to state pension this is coming up more and more, particularly with people of my age who are still in their 30s, effectively. I'm planning personally.

There probably won't be a state pension around when I get to retire, or certainly, it'll probably look be means tested. And I think it's really important to effectively to start factoring in those type of changes. We all know, and I think it's been evident actually, in the press article this morning, that state pension is going to be unaffordable over the long term with this country currently under the lock guarantee.

So that will change in the future. And yes, we can make assumptions for that. And not everyone is entitled to full state pension as well. So a lot of the assumption modelers will assume that it's just under 12,000 a year. Again, you can override that. It might be you've worked out the country, and you've got national insurance gaps on there, and you don't qualify for the full year.

HELEN PERRIN: Thanks, Rory. And then please, could you say a little more on fees and charges after the three discovery meeting?

PAUL GORDON: Rory, would you like that one as well?

RORY STUART: So effectively, what we do is we charge for a financial planning report, as it's comprehensive and clean. Category modeling is 3,500 pounds, and that's a flat rate fee. And then any ongoing charge of any investable assets that are outside of WTW LifeSight. So something, if we were to take in management, ISAs, or stocks and shares, or general investment accounts, or alternative pensions that you've got, would be 0.9% per annum.

HELEN PERRIN: Thank you. And then, do you assist with wills at all? One for atomos, I think.

PAUL GORDON: I'll pick up on that one. We don't directly ourselves. But certainly, should you need a will power of attorney, setting up a trust and so on, depending upon where you're based geographically, we can point you in the right direction. So we have links with a number of solicitors but also will writers as well. So not us specifically and directly. But certainly, indirectly, we can steer you in the right direction.

HELEN PERRIN: Great, thank you. I think that is all questions so far. But do keep those coming if you have any more questions. And to give you a chance to type those in, I'll just cover some of that upcoming events as well.

So the next webinar will be on the 24th of October when I'll be joined by two of atomos's most experienced female financial planners to host a targeted financial planning workshop for women. Now, there are a few reasons why we are hosting a specific session for women.

Firstly, there are some life events which typically have a more significant impact on women's finances and on men's, for example, periods of leave to care for children and other relatives, and part-time working are statistically much more common for women than men, which can leave women with gaps in pension and long-term savings. Provision, you may have heard people talking about the gender pension gap or the gender wealth gap, for example.

And research also suggests that women are less likely to get involved in long-term financial planning decisions and often have less financial confidence than men. For example, a recent study found that only 23% of women globally take charge of long-term financial planning decisions, but 76% of widows and divorcees wish they had been involved in those decisions whilst they'd been married.

And perhaps the industry is partly to blame for that lack of engagement. We don't have to look back too far to times when women couldn't open a bank account in their own name, for example. And females today make up just 18% of financial advisors in the UK.

So I guess, the message there is help us reverse that trend or some of those trends that we're seeing. Join us for that session, or encourage the women in your life too. And then in November, as we've mentioned, we have taken a brave or perhaps foolish decision to run a post-budget analysis workshop at 8:30 the morning after the autumn budget and with some pretty radical changes to the current inheritance tax regime expected and rumors of additional taxes on high value properties plus ISA and pension allowances potentially at risk for high earners.

There should be lots for us to talk about in that session. And so we'll outline our immediate thoughts on what the announcements could mean for your individual financial planning. And so please join us for that one at 8:30 on the 27th of November. Just having a look if we've had any more questions come in. Doesn't look-- oh, hold on.

If not able to attend the session on the 27th, will there be a recording? Yes, there will. So if you just register for the event, you will automatically receive a recording with the slides and a useful resource sheet afterwards. And then is that fee 0.9% per annum on amount invested or amount gained?

RORY STUART: I just responded to that Helen separately. It's the amount invested and it comes off the ongoing financial planning costs as well.

HELEN PERRIN: Great, thank you. So if there are no more questions, then a big thank you from us for attending today. We hope you found the webinar useful. We'd love to hear your feedback, and we will send a feedback survey with just two questions in the follow-up email, so really good to get your thoughts on that.

And any thoughts on topics you'd like to hear more about, so you can pop those into the Q&A or get in touch with me, Helen Perrin, to suggest topics for future webinars to cover. And a massive thank you to Paul and Rory for joining me today. It's been a really interesting session and has hopefully motivated everybody to review our financial planning goals and add some specific details to those, if we haven't already.

And just need to finish off today by sharing our limitations for LifeSight to caveat that the information was shared today is for information only and shouldn't be relied on to make specific financial decisions without taking advice.

And with atomos and WTW on this call, we need to share the same information from atomos around investment risks and not relying on information in this webinar to make financial decisions. Thank you, again, for joining today. Have a lovely rest of the day, and we hope to see you at one of our events soon.

PAUL GORDON: Thanks, Helen.

RORY STUART: [INAUDIBLE]