In your 20’s and 30’s, perhaps providing for your retirement isn’t top of your mind. However, making even small changes to the way you manage your finances can have a large effect on your future standard of living. For example, by making small contributions to your pension plan at this stage, which are fully tax deductible, you give your money time to grow into something much more significant in years to come. Likewise, it is generally cheaper to put in place serious illness and life assurance cover in the earlier years.

Life assurance:

If you have dependants that rely on you to support them, it is generally considered critical to have in place life assurance that will pay about a fixed sum in the event of an untimely death. Along with making financial sense as life cover is not expensive; you will be securing your loved ones’ financial future giving you peace of mind. Premiums are typically paid monthly. Sometimes life cover can be combined with serious illness cover (see below). Again, it is generally much cheaper to put life cover in place in your younger years and take advantage of the tailor made solutions that can be found to exclusively meet your needs.

Serious illness cover: 

Having straightforward life cover, as noted above, is generally considered critical. However, is it enough? Your dependants rely on you to support them, but what if you are unable to work and your income dries up? Putting an appropriate level of serious illness cover in place ensures that you and your family will have a financial cushion in the event of you being diagnosed with a serious illness covered under the plan.

Income Protection:

Your income is your biggest asset, the average person will earn over €2m in their lifetime, if you are unable to work due to Illness, accident or disability, income protection will pay you up to 75% of your salary until you are fit enough to return to work. Certain terms and conditions apply such as occupation type, we would be happy to discuss this cover with you in more detail.

Pension/retirement planning: 

Depending on your circumstances, you may already have a company pension plan in place. However, many employees and self employed people have no pension in place and this is something that people in their 20’s and 30’s should look at seriously and take advantage of the number of benefits to saving a pension. Significant tax savings can be made as you can claim as much as half of the contribution back in Tax Relief. This is a highly efficient way to grow your investment where you will receive a tax-free lump on retirement yielding an excellent return.

 It is important to remember your pension provides an independent source of income in your later years. Saving a pension allows you to protect the standard of living you may be used to as €179 per week (state benefit) will not allow for the good things in life like holidays, golf and socializing when you have more time to enjoy them. It is also important to note that many pension schemes provide either a lump some payment and or a pension to your family in the event of your untimely death giving you extra piece of mind. If you are in a company that has no pension scheme in place, your company can put in place an executive or group pension plan tailored for the employees and the business. Finally, you can look at pension plans that invest in assets that you directly determine (called self-administered pension plans) and combine property investment with a pension plan (pension backed mortgage)

Savings and Investment: 

You may want to put money away but not lock it up until retirement. Rather than putting your hard earned cash in a bank deposit, where it is unlikely to earn enough to keep pace with inflation, never mind grow appreciably, you can look at exposing your money to different asset classes such as stocks, shares, bonds and property.  

You may want to consider unit linked or managed funds as a method of growing your money over the long term.  Similar to investing in a pension, your contributions are invested in particular types of investments (e.g. Irish equities, UK property) which you can broadly determine by your choice of fund. 

Keyman cover:

As a key member of a business management team, any disruption to your ability to carry out your duties could be critical to the success or otherwise of the business. Keyman insurance is a policy that is taken out by the business, for the benefit of the business, on your life. In the event of an untimely death, the business receives a payout designed to compensate it for the loss and to enable it to recruit a replacement. The premium is paid by the business, not the employee.