"In our opinion there are three things to watch out for when you consider retirement planning"

Firstly, try to be realistic about how much you should contribute. Make sure that you can pay the same amount after Christmas and holidays when your overall spending is usually higher. Also how much will you need in retirement e.g. for leisure, long term domestic help and, even later on, nursing care.

Secondly, your main considerations should be charges and flexibility. Check what these are on any plan you're considering.

Charges - With most plans there is a balance between charges and flexibility. The more flexible the plan the more you are charged.

Basically you will be charged by the provider for running your retirement plan. This is normal as they are a company that has to make a profit. The charges are usually divided into the initial charge i.e. when you buy your pension and then the on-going charges. These charges are taken from your fund.

Flexibility - Traditionally UK, European and American based Pensions are highly in-flexible meaning once you've signed up for one you can't get out of any aspect of the agreement without paying heavy penalties or losing money. Offshore plans tend to offer much more flexibility.

A good offshore retirement plan should allow you to do the following without penalty:

Allow you to reduce your payments / contributions without penalty. For example, if you want to take a career break or end up unemployed or lose your contract.

Allow you to switch your investments between different funds within the same pension provider's range of funds, without penalty in order to respond to changes in the market.

Allow you to have the option of retiring when you want to without penalty.

"What if I go direct to a provider that I found on the internet or a friend has their retirement plan with"

You'd think that if you by-pass an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) or Broker and buy direct from the pension / insurance company you'd save any commission, however you'd be wrong. The Larger the IFA, the more discount or extra allocation you may get due to volumes of business written.

You will almost certainly pay the same. The pension / insurance company simply keeps the commission it would have paid to the IFA.

The pension / insurance companies have their own fixed range of products. These may turn out to be suitable for you but there may well be something better in the market which they will not offer you.

Finding out what each provider's best products are and cherry picking the best is a great idea but often impractical. Do you have the time for this and where would you start? Professional advice will get you the right solution and save you time.

"A Professional, Independent, Global Company"

With expert teams of Independent Financial Advisers in more than 30 countries, we currently have over 25,000 clients, in 105 countries, with in excess of $5 billion of funds under administration and management.

We offer our clients advice on a global basis and as a Company we are totally independent and not tied to one specific provider and its products. We can therefore use all the products and companies in the market and offer unbiased advice.

deVere and Partners offer on-going levels of service and contact wherever our clients are in the world.

As a company we mainly offer investments protected with Government backed security. We recommend contracts which offer Government backed investor protection i.e. Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man.

At deVere we can help steer you through all the considerations so that you can start the best plan for your own personal circumstances.

Send us an e-mail and we will arrange for one of our Professional Financial Advisers to contact you, go through your current situation and find the right solution for you and with no charge for our service.

If you haven't started your retirement planning or want to check whether you need to do more act now by visiting deVere & Partners and have the lifestyle in retirement that you deserve!

pages 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6