Workplace Simulation - Assignment Example

Important assessment information Aims of this assessment This simulated workplace assessment activity is conducted to the standard expected in the workplace in order to demonstrate consistent performance of typical activities experienced in the financial services industry. This assessment focusses on providing comprehensive advice in a financial planning context. It requires the construction of a Statement of Advice, in a scaled context, with a focus on a transition-to-retirement strategy for a fictitious couple. Precise modelling is required including ensuring, among other things, that superannuation contributions caps are not exceeded. Appropriate warnings of the risks of scaled advice are addressed. Documentary procedures such as file note requirements are assessed. Advice areas including debt recycling strategies are explored. Comparing margin lending to home equity loans are also covered. Investment platform solutions are canvassed, as are investment strategies that focus on blending fund managers with a focus on core-satellite investment approaches. Insurance strategies including managing possible exclusions in the underwriting process are canvassed as are non-insurance premium related factors. Marking and feedback This assignment contains 1 assessment activity containing specific instructions. This particular assessment forms part of your overall assessment for the following units of competency: FNSFPL603 FNSFPL606 FNSPRM601 Grading for this assessment will be deemed “competent” or “not-yet-competent” in line with specified educational standards under the Australian Qualifications Framework. What does “competent” mean? These answers contain relevant and accurate information in response to the question/s with limited serious errors in fact or application. If incorrect information is contained in an answer, it must be fundamentally outweighed by the accurate information provided. This will be assessed against a marking guide provided to assessors for their determination. What does “not-yet-competent” mean? This occurs when an assessment does not meet the marking guide standards provided to assessors. These answers either do not address the question specifically, or are wrong from a legislative perspective, or are incorrectly applied. Answers that omit to provide a response to any significant issue (where multiple issues must be addressed in a question) may also be deemed not-yet-competent. Answers that have faulty reasoning, a poor standard of expression or include plagiarism may also be deemed not-yet-competent. Please note, additional information regarding Monarch’s plagiarism policy is contained in the Student Information Guide which can be found here: http://www.monarch.edu.au/student-info/ What happens if you are deemed not-yet-competent? In the event you do not achieve competency by your assessor on this assessment, you will be given one more opportunity to re-submit the assessment after consultation with your Trainer/ Assessor. You will know your assessment is deemed ‘not-yet-competent’ if your grade book in the Monarch LMS says “NYC” after you have received an email from your assessor advising your assessment has been graded. Important: It is your responsibility to ensure your assessment resubmission addresses all areas deemed unsatisfactory by your assessor. Please note, if you are still unsuccessful in meeting competency after resubmitting your assessment, you will be required to repeat those units. In the event that you have concerns about the assessment decision then you can refer to our Complaints & Appeals process also contained within the Student Information Guide. Expectations from your assessor when answering different types of assessment questions Knowledge based questions: A knowledge based question requires you to clearly identify and cover the key subject matter areas raised in the question in full as part of the response. Skill based questions: Where you are asked to write as though you are speaking to a client, your answers must show your ability to: understand your client’s concerns/perspective/views show empathy display a professional response explain ideas clearly and simply so your client can understand the issues Good luck Finally, good luck with your learning and assessments and remember your trainers are here to assist you  Activity instructions to candidates This is an open book assessment activity. You are required to read this assessment and answer all 4 questions that follow. Please type your answers in the spaces provided. Please ensure you have read “Important assessment information” at the front of this assessment Estimated time for completion of this assessment activity: 4 hours You have now covered all the essential knowledge and skill elements of the financial planning process. In the Diploma of Financial Planning you were shown what a Statement of Advice looked like. Now, in this final module of the Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning, you are required to construct various elements of a Statement of Advice (SOA) for various fictitious client scenarios. Whilst studying module 4 of the Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning, you have been given industry specific strategies and tips used by successful financial planners. The SOA components we require you to construct involve you applying some of these strategies and tips. To keep on track, we have broken up the components of the statement of advice you are required to complete into sub-questions. Case Study You are a financial planner who is required to present a Statement of Advice to the following client, Angelina and Greg Pound who are 58 years and 60 years respectively. About their family Angelina and Greg have 3 children; Bianca, Peter and Tania who are 31, 29 and 27 respectively. Tania, the youngest child still lives at home with Greg and Angelina and doesn’t pay any board. She has recently completed post graduate studies in psychology and has been saving up for a deposit on her first house with her parent’s blessing. Tania plans to purchase her first home any time, as long as she can find the right house. She will move out of the family home once this has been achieved. Greg and Angelina’s other two children are both financially independent and have left the “family nest”. Bianca, the oldest child is married to Mathew and is also 5 months pregnant with their first child (and Angelina and Greg’s first grandchild). Bianca is a secondary school teacher and Mathew (her husband) is in IT support. Peter, the middle child works as a manager of a restaurant, and is single. Their financial situation Angelina works part-time earning $48,000 before tax as a speech pathologist and Greg works as a construction project manager earning $93,000 before tax. They estimate at the moment they are able to save approximately $2,900 per month since their eldest two children left home. They believe once Tania leaves home this cashflow saving amount will increase to $3,900 per month. They anticipate this will occur within the next 12 months. Angelina and Greg own their own house in joint names. They believe their home is worth conservatively $560,000. They still have a mortgage of $74,000 with NAB. The loan is a principal and interest loan, with a variable interest rate of 6%. They own some direct shares in joint names which they purchased via various initial public offerings and de-mutualisations (e.g. AMP) over the past 20 years. The shares they own are CBA, Qantas, AMP, and Telstra. Combined, the shares are worth $65,000 based on current market values. The gross unrealised capital gain across all shareholdings (if the shares were to be sold) is approximately $36,000. The break-up of their direct shares is below: Today’s Market Value Purchase Value CBA $28,500 $4,500 Qantas $4,500 $5,500 AMP $19,600 $5,500 Telstra $12,400 $13,500 Angelina and Greg want to retire when Greg reaches age 65 - in 5 years’ time. They currently have their superannuation monies in XYZ Superannuation and ABC Superannuation. Their balances are as follows: Greg - $398,500 (XYZ Superannuation Fund) Angelina - $336,400 (ABC Superannuation Funds) Based on the risk profile they have completed in your pre-appointment pack you sent them prior to your first appointment, Greg and Angelina have indicated they are ‘moderately conservative’ investors with respect to their superannuation monies. The five different risk profiles are provided below for your convenience. Indicative Investor Risk Profile Growth assets in portfolio Income assets in portfolio Description Conservative 0% – 25% 75% – 100% You are a conservative investor who does not wish to take any investment risk. Your priorities are the safeguarding of your investment capital. You are prepared to sacrifice higher returns for peace of mind. Moderately Conservative 10% – 30% 70% – 90% You are a moderately conservative investor who is prepared to accept a small amount of risk. Your priority remains the preservation of capital over the medium to long term. You may have some understanding of investment markets; however you cannot afford to take any chances with your capital. Balanced 25% – 50% 50% – 75% You are a balanced investor with some understanding of investment market behaviour and can accept some short term risk to your capital. You do not wish to see all of your capital eroded by tax and inflation and are prepared to take a small short term risk in order to gain longer term capital growth. Assertive 45% – 65% 35% – 55% You are an assertive investor who understands the movement of investment markets. You are most interested in maximising long term capital growth, although you do not wish to make unbalanced investment decisions. You are happy to sacrifice short term safety in order to maximise long term capital growth. Aggressive 75% – 100% 0% – 25% You are an aggressive investor. You are prepared to sacrifice your investment capital in pursuit of the highest long term capital growth investment. You are most interested in reducing your taxable income and have an understanding of the behaviour of investment markets. Question A (Please note, the additional information (below) pertains only to question A) Additional information Greg and Angelina have indicated at their meeting they only want advice from you in regard to the appropriateness of a transition-to-retirement strategy for Greg only. Angelina does not want to salary sacrifice or commence a pension at this stage and they specifically expressed a request that any potential transition-to-retirement strategy consideration only applies for Greg. They are keen to look at the pros and cons of the strategy if Greg was to implement it, including how it would work and what issues they should be aware of in regard to implementing the strategy. They are open to utilising your services in terms of advising them on managing the TTR strategy over time too. To be clear however, Greg and Angelina do not want you to make any recommendations in regard to their superannuation money and how it should be invested. They are both very happy where their superannuation money currently is, i.e. at ABC Superannuation (an industry super fund) and XYZ Superannuation Fund (a retail fund) respectively. They aren’t even sure what is the asset allocation in which their current funds are invested, and don’t want you to investigate this matter, and hence charge them for this work. They also don’t want you to address how much money they will need to retire on in 5 years’ time based on their life expectancies. In fact they haven’t even considered how much money they will need to spend in retirement when you asked this question. They also don’t want to pay for your advice on what to do with their shares at the moment, or their surplus money they earn each month in terms of buying more shares, topping up superannuation or paying down the mortgage. They have already made the decision independently that they want to use the surplus money to salary sacrifice, simple! Required: Part (i) Read section 10 of the Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning course materials, and specifically read section 10.4 in the ASIC section pertaining to “Scaled Personal Advice” regarding a TTR strategy (commencing on page 104). Using the same amount of brevity included in the example provided by ASIC, please provide a Statement of Advice in your own words to Angelina and Greg based on their specific requirements around commencing a TTR strategy for Greg only. Please construct your SOA addressing the following issues: IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure your strategy does not breach the cap. Include any assumptions you are making and ensure that you follow the 2015/2016 financial year employer contribution rates and contribution limits. Please attach your answer to this question separately, and submit your SOA separately along with this Module 4 assignment. IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to determine how much Greg could draw down from his TTR pension whilst maximising his salary sacrifice within his annual Concessional Contributions limit, please download the attached Excel spreadsheet which contains the assumed rates of returns and tax implications for these specific clients. The TTR example assumptions include Greg retaining $5,000 in his accumulation fund and rolling over the remainder into a TTR Pension. Please do not adjust the assumed rates. Please complete the 3 yellow cells in the input section of the Excel spreadsheet. Finally complete the yellow cell in the TTR calculator (a trial and error method will be fine) to ensure that the two grey cells representing Greg’s take-home pay equal each other. Please attach your completed Excel spreadsheet separately, and submit it separately along with this Module 4 assignment. Part (ii) Answer the following questions. a. Is it better to implement a TTR strategy in Greg or Angelina’s name, given their respective marginal tax rates? b. Assume your client doesn’t want to change their take home pay, in this instance please explain how a TTR strategy would work for Greg? c. Because surplus cash flow is available each month, what options could you suggest Greg and Angelina consider? d. Given your lack of information regarding the investment asset allocation within Greg’s super fund, explain the liquidity issues that might concern you, given the need provide a minimum pension under a TTR strategy? e. Provide an adequate warning to your client about the risks inherent in a scaled advice document compared to a comprehensive SOA. Things to address could include: Asset allocation/liquidity Risk profile Investment strategy Goals and objectives in retirement, will those be achieved? Question B (Please note, the additional information (below) pertains only to question B) Greg and Angelina are interested in growing their wealth possibilities as much as possible prior to retirement. Whilst 5 years of working might have been their target initially, you have subsequently provided them with a few home truths about how much capital they would require at retirement to meet their required income needs (estimated at $75,000 net of tax in today’s dollars). This realisation from Greg and Angelina has led them to consider working for at least 7 more years, rather than their initial 5 year estimate. Greg and Angelina also are considering gearing as a means to accelerate their wealth creation possibilities over the next 7 years whilst they continue to work and have surplus cash flow. As a responsible financial adviser, you have explained all the risks of gearing to Greg and Angelina. You have made them re-examine their risk profile after your explanation of the risks, coupled with the reality they will be underfunded in retirement the way they are going at the moment. Greg and Angelina have indicated to you they are comfortable borrowing up to $50,000 to invest in Australian equities (shares) despite their risk profile demonstrating they are a “moderate conservative investor”. They are also attracted to the tax benefits of gearing. Obviously, you have explained to Greg and Angelina that they need to have a high (aggressive) risk profile in order to borrow money and invest that money into 100% growth assets. They agree there is a contradiction to some extent in being a moderate conservative investor when it comes to their super, but at the same time wanting you to facilitate a gearing strategy for them (as explained above) without touching their super. You explain to Greg and Angelina that you will need to document this strategy via a Statement of Advice. Required (Note: you are not required to complete a Statement of Advice) (i) Explain what file note requirements you should make internally to document Greg and Angelina’s change of risk profile when it comes to borrowing and investing $50,000. The following considerations are important in addressing Greg and Angelina change of risk profile. Strengths and weaknesses of the investment Major opportunities and threats Risk tolerance levels Capacity to manage risks Learning needs and tools Their risk tolerance, priority setting and ability to mitigate risks Linkages between different levels of risks (ii) Explain how margin lending would work for Greg and Angelina if they want to use their existing $65,000 jointly held shares as security for a $50,000 jointly-held margin loan. Margin lending as a form of gearing allows Greg and Angelina to borrow funds using their $65,000 shares as their security. Greg and Angelina borrows 50,000 giving them a total amount of $115,000 to invest(including the existing $65,000 jointly held shares) they can choose to prepay their interest in advance as it is tax deductible according to their own financial situation. The borrowed $50,000 can now be invested in securities, which they can select from the approved securities list. In future, say 5 years, Greg and Angelina can decide to cash in their portfolio. This will facilitate paying off the loan as well as keep extra amounts if at that time it will have increased in value. (iii) If Greg and Angelina wanted to have a loan to value ratio (LVR) of no more than 45%, how much would they be able to borrow based on their share portfolio currently being worth $65,000? Taking the formula as loan/value=LVR, the amount they would borrow should not exceed $29,250. i.e. 45*65000/100 (iv) If the maximum LVR offered by the margin lender was 85% prior to a margin call being issued, what two options would Greg and Angelina have if the portfolio fell in value considerably and they received a margin call? Explain how such options would play out in reality. Greg and Angelina would have to put in additional capital of their own or sell part of their portfolio. These two options are important as they help them to restore the margin. 65000/115000=56%. Greg and Angelina must add more money or sell their assets to increase this margin. (v) Explain to Greg and Angelina the difference between a home equity loan to borrow monies in order to purchase $50,000 of growth based investments compared to a margin lending strategy for this purpose. What benefits would a home equity loan have over a margin loan? The difference between home equity loan (HEL) and margin loan is that in HEL, the borrower. Must use the equity of their home as collateral the value of the property dictates how much. Loan one can get. This value is determined by an appraiser from a lending institution prior to Getting a loan. Margin loans require only securities such as shares or managed funds as collateral .The benefits of HEL over margin loan are: Lower interest rates- In HEL, the interest rates are much lower than in margin loans hence lower risks. Potential tax deductions- 100% of HEL interest payments may be tax deductible, which may not be the case with margin loans. Cash payments.- HEL provides a lump sum of money, which can be used to cover major expenses. (vi) Explain how debt recycling could work in regard to Greg and Angelina’s current situation. Debt recycling is a process of converting private housing loan into a debt on which the interest is tax-deductible. Greg and Angelina can use their home (worth$ 560,000)as security and get a loan for investment purposes. The borrowed money can be invested in income-generating assets such as shares or investment property. Greg and Angelina will then use the income generated and any tax advantages to pay off non-deductible debt in the home loan. They should also consider increasing their investment purpose loan by the same amount used to pay off non-deductible loan and then reinvest that surplus amount. For debt recycling strategy to work for Greg and Angelina, they must be willing to invest in a long-term investment and tolerate risks and short-term fluctuations in investment value. Question C Required (Note: you are not required to complete a Statement of Advice) (i) Explain the benefits of managing a client’s investment monies via a platform from a practice management perspective. What benefits could you as an adviser provide Greg and Angelina if they chose to let you manage their superannuation monies via a platform arrangement? There are many benefits of using platforms as a manager. They enable the adviser to keep pace with the changes in the market therefore saving money and time. More control therefore increasing efficiency. Platforms render control of investment easier and increase the efficiency in managing a client’s investment money. Cheaper for planners- Reporting and optimizing the portfolio is rendered easier and cheaper with direct shares depending on how one does it. The benefits accrued in hiring me to manage superannuation monies are many. To begin with, Pooling all direct investments in one place and letting the platform take care of the administration will be beneficial to Greg and Angelina as the risks of losing money are minimal. Platforms aids the management of funds invested such that a good plan is made in how to invest the money in other properties apart from security investments. Greg and Angelina may not have sufficient knowledge on risky investments that might not yield desired results. This is taken care of by the manager. (ii) Explain the concept of blending managers and a core-satellite approach to investment in layman terms that Greg and Angelina would clearly understand. An effective investment portfolio involves more than just picking a handful of fund managers with good prospects for enhanced performance and efficiency. This calls for manager blending which involves choosing the best manager for a certain portfolio. Managers with different, complementary and insights into investment are selected. This diversification gives them freedom to run the investment smoothly and with fewer risks. Core-satellite investing on the other hand is a method of creating portfolios in order to minimize costs, tax and liabilities while providing opportunity to shine in the stock market. Investments are selected and then a manager with the portfolios skills is hired to earn greater returns. Question D (Please note, the additional information (below) pertains only to question D) Six months after your first meeting, Greg and Angelina come to see you as proud grandparents of a baby girl Emily. However as doting grandparents, they are a concerned and want your advice about whether their daughter Bianca and son-in-law Mathew are protecting themselves in the event of illness, accident or death. In fact Bianca confided to Greg and Angelina that neither she nor Mathew (her husband) has any personal insurance at present including life, TPD, Critical Illness or Income Protection insurance. Greg and Angelina ask you to call their daughter to arrange an appointment to discuss personal insurance with her and her husband. One week later, when sitting down with Bianca and Mathew and whilst completing their client questionnaire, Mathew indicates he still suffers from a bad back he received in a minor car accident 2 years ago. He receives treatment for his back fortnightly and he regularly takes pain medication when it flares up. Twice in the past year he has taken short periods off work because of his back. Required (Note: you are not required to complete a Statement of Advice) (i) You are going to make a range of insurance recommendations to Bianca and Mathew. One of your recommendations is income protection for Mathew exclusively. This is because Bianca is on maternity leave and you will re-address coverage for her when she returns to work. Explain as though you were speaking to Mathew and Bianca, how you would raise the real prospect that Mathew’s existing back condition would not be covered (i.e. excluded) under any income protection policy claim. For example your answer should be: “…..Bianca and Mathew, I’m not sure if you are aware but insurance companies work on probabilities when it comes to estimating making a claim……etc” “I am pleased to meet you Bianca and Mathew. You will agree with me that we are living in a world full of uncertainties and we must try our best to protect ourselves as well as our jobs. Insurance does not guarantee you 100% protection but it gives you immunity in occurrence of certain hazards. Obviously, it will be expensive to insure each and everything you have but you can point out the most important and risky situations to avoid the burden falling on you heavily once the risk occurs. The right income protection can be of enormous value to you and any dependants, whether you're looking to protect a short-term debt, a mortgage, or your income for life. Income protection replaces some of your income if you are unable to work due to sickness or injury. You can choose the proportion you wish to insure up to a maximum of 75% of your income, up to $10,000 per month. You also choose the maximum amount of time you would receive monthly payments - either 1 or 2 years. I would advise Mathew to get the cover due to days of work missed as a result of your back condition” (ii) You make a recommendation for both Bianca and Mathew to take out $1.1 million of life and TPD insurance cover, after some detailed analysis of their current circumstances, assets and debts. You provide three insurance policy options to them in a follow up meeting. Mathew goes straight to the cheapest policy, but Bianca is more circumspect and asks why a more expensive level of cover might still be worth considering. Explain what factors other than price are important considerations when weighing up insurance options. I would like to explain other important factors that you should consider when weighing up insurance options. You need to ask yourself these important questions. What are your medical needs for the coming year? Once you evaluate your needs and realize that you need more health check-up, it is advisable to take up a health insurance cover. How frequent does the risks occur? The most frequent risks are worth insuring even if they might be quite expensive. It is not good to suffer the loss alone that is why we have insurance companies to help you recover loss in occurrence of such circumstances. Does the company have the potential of compensating you once the risks occur? There will be no point of insuring yourself with a company that will complicate issues in occurrence of risks. Some companies might fail to compensate your claim on grounds that you might have taken part in the risk even if it was an accident. These are some of the factors you should consider when weighing up insurance options. (iii) A couple of days later, Mathew comes to see you again. He had dug out an old life insurance policy taken out 6 years ago which he had forgotten about. After you have completed a detailed analysis on Mathew’s existing life insurance policy and compared his old policy to your recommended policy, you establish and demonstrate there are numerous benefits for Matthew to switch providers to your recommended insurer. Explain the steps you need to undertake when implementing the new insurance and also tackling the problem of the old insurance and the need to cancel it. For you to switch from the old policy, the following steps are important. Choose a new insurance company. In this case I have recommended you the best insurer. Cancelling the old policy-it is good to do this in writing even if the company does not require it. This ensures that you have record of the date of the requested cancellation so that there is no confusion as to when you want the old policy to terminate. Prorating, short-rating and avoiding penalties.- When you cancel your policy mid-term, your insurance company may either prorate or short-rate the refund that you receive. The problem with the old policy is that it does not indicate that you have a back condition bearing in mind that you had an accident a few years ago. Another problem is that Mathew might consider changing the beneficiary of the policy since he now has a wife and a daughter. This calls for the need to cancel the old policy. Read More