Investment Planning

Elizabeth Roberts

I met Chris in 1992 when I bought a life insurance policy from him while he was at a previous company. When he started up Estate Capital he became my financial adviser.

At that time I was mainly investing money that we’d inherited, but when my husband and I both retired there were a number of policies that matured so we wanted to invest those. We used other advisers as well, but Chris looked into everything and was able to give us an overall picture on how to balance our investments across the board.

A clear view

What was very helpful was that Chris always gave the valuations of all the investments we had. He would calculate what the inheritance tax on it was likely to be, and explain what we could do about it.

More recently he helped me after my husband died 18 months ago. All the capital was in my control then and he helped us to reduce the inheritance tax again, which was a huge relief.

Sympathetic and relaxed

Chris has a very sympathetic approach. He’s never made me feel pressured into doing anything. With something like this, you need time to think. When my husband died, for example, I was very fragile, and he understood that.

He knows my family and our financial history and so there’s no need to explain everything to him as you would a stranger.

The importance of advice

I’d advise anyone whose investing money to take professional advice. Some people play the stock market on their own, but for me this would have been too risky. I’d always wanted to build up an amount of capital so could have a private income, so for me it was important to have safe, steady growth.

I wanted to increase my level of risk, then I would trust Chris with this because I’ve had good advice from him. For example, if my circumstances change, I might want that flexibility.

I understand Chris’s method of investing and I think it’s a clear yet flexible approach, without too many choices. You don’t want to be bamboozled with too many options, that would make things difficult!

He has also helped to protect the value of my property and set this up to go to trustees in anything happens to me. This gives me a feeling of control and knowing that everything’s taken care of.

It’s Chris’s personal approach that makes all the difference to me, it makes such a difference having someone you can trust

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