It’s definitely worth having your information ducks in a row when you come to have a first meeting. You want your basic information to hand, in case the adviser asks for it.
Chances are, at the first meeting, things will be fairly high-level, not deep, but the process of getting your information up to date is itself useful in preparing you for the advice process.
You want to get together the following info:
- Your basic info – Date of birth and National Insurance numbers. Worth taking some ID with you to the first meeting too. Passport, driving licence and recent hard-copy utility bill
- Your earnings – get this from payslips, your last P60, or if you’re self-employed, your last tax return or business accounts. Any expected windfalls would be good to know too
- Your expenses – probably the most important of all the info you need to get. You want to break this down into minimum monthly expenses – the money you need to spend to live, and discretionary expenses – the stuff you could do without if needed. Any significant lump sum expenses coming up in the next five years would be good to know
- Your debts – personal loans, credit card agreements, car finance and of course, mortgages
- Your cash balances – money in the bank or building society, plus National Savings
- Your investments – money which is invested in real assets like shares and bonds, usually wrapped inside accounts like an ISA
- Your pensions – how much do you have in pension funds? If you have a current workplace pension, find out how much you and your employer are putting in. Your most recent statement will have much of the info you need – that goes for all savings, investments and pensions. If you’re in a DB pension scheme, or have been in the past, get your most recent annual benefits statement to hand. Log into the provider’s website and download this if you need to
- Your property – both the value of your home, plus who owns it (if there are two of you is it jointly, joint tenants or tenants in common?) Any mortgage linked to it. Any second homes or rental properties, plus the mortgages and income and expenses pertaining to those, including who the income is paid to
- Any business assets – if you own a business, or if you have a limited company with property investments in it, have details of that to hand. A recent balance sheet and P&L would be good
- Your protection – details of any life insurance or other insurances, including the level of cover, the term, the premium, whose life is protected and who own the policy. If there are trusts involved, have these to hand too
- Your wills – details of how your wills are written, maybe even have copies to hand
As I say, most of this you won’t need to know in detail for the first, exploratory meeting, but you will need it as the process progresses, so it’s worth getting it all together sooner rather than later.
