#383539
Postby Chrysalis » February 4th, 2021, 8:42 am
Some useful information here.
Two points that perhaps haven’t been emphasised.
1. Make sure you understand your pension provider’s death benefits options, not all providers offer beneficiary drawdown, if that is something you want to be available to your wife.
2. Consider arranging things so that your wife has enough secured/guaranteed income to pay the day to day bills - ie coming from state pension or an annuity (if neither of you has any DB pension) . I suspect that would massively ease stress after your death, which I assume is the objective. I understand you may feel strongly against annuities, but it is worth thinking seriously about this option because it does provide stress free income. I know it’s possible to buy deferred annuities, I wonder if you can buy an annuity contingent on your death? If not, would you consider a partial annuity for your wife to ensure sufficient day to day income? Then there isn’t the urgency about worrying when and how essential income is going to arrive, and time to get to grips with the ‘savings’.
My final plea would be to simplify, then simplify again. Do this even if it turns out that you are the surviving spouse. My father was a great collector of accounts. When he became too frail to manage (or even remember) them himself, it took me about 2 years to track down every account (and if there hadn’t been written statements, if it had all been online, I might never have found them). After I’d simplified, he had one ISA account holding one multi asset tracker fund, one cash buffer account with National savings, and a current account. That was enough for me to manage (and I wasn’t a bereaved partner and am financially competent). He didn’t have an invested pension, just DB and state pension, which were enough to live on, luckily, because it took me a long time to actually work out how much he had in assets. It would have been much more stressful if he’d needed those assets to live off.