Liberty Corporate Customer Update | July 2011
With Father's Day behind us, June gave dads a chance to shine, and while chocolates and golf balls are a great way to get on his good side - temporarily - what would happen if the family breadwinner were to unexpectedly become disabled? Whether you're a dad or just starting out, disability cover is something everyone should have. Liberty recently launched a market first concept - disability cover for life, providing cover past retirement age. All qualifying existing customers have also been automatically upgraded. If you run a small to medium-sized businesses, disability is just one important area to plan for. When key individuals in a small business die, leave or become disabled, both the business and the owner are exposed to loss. A good financial adviser will be able to help you indentify, analyse and match the correct combination of risk products to the needs of your business. Something else we all need is retirement savings, and government is pressing ahead with significant reforms to the country's retirement-funding system to improve competition, thereby reducing the cost of retirement products. It is also changing how contributions to retirement funds will be taxed. You can read more about this here. Remember - it's never too early to start planning for retirement. Young, new employees seldom consider saving for retirement because the thought of needing to provide for old age is quite boring, and seems too far away. But it's important to plan, and the sooner the better. Looking at the broader economy, South Africa's consumer inflation remains higher than expected, at an annualised 4.6%. Internationally, concerns around the weak state of the Greek economy have kept investors holding their breath this month. The Athens parliament is expected to announce spending cuts and tax increases, as it tries to prevent further knock-on effects to other members of the EU. Without these measures, they are unlikely to secure any further bailout funds. On the markets, in spite of the nagging worries over Greece, the rand has held its ground reasonably well, bonds continue to firm and commodity prices have fallen - including the price of oil, which is good news for anyone with a car. Concerns about Greece have, however, resulted in poor appetite for risk investments such as shares, and European stock markets overall have now lost ground for eight weeks on the trot - their worst run since 1998. Market fears aside, as the first half of the year comes to a close and you consider your options for the future, if you're wondering whether to go the route of direct insurance, which doesn't make use of intermediaries, bear in mind that this approach has its own set of risks. Until next time Liberty Corporate: Communications
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