Our Philosophy

Our Risk Philosophy

Ensuring that you are protected against the unexpected.

The ‘Planning for Life’ Risk Philosophy aims to:

Protect your biggest assets
Provide support to you in the event of an unexpected event
Ensure your family is not adversely affected by an unexpected event
Reduce the stress associated with recovery from an unexpected event
Maintain your cashflow so you can maintain your existing lifestyle
Assist you with your estate planning strategies

‘Planning for Life’ have established a clear view on how our clients should protect themselves and their families. However, because everyone’s circumstances are unique there will be a need to tailor this approach for each client.

Dr Barnard assisted his brother Christian Barnard in the first successful human heart transplant and was the driving force behind Critical Illness insurance. He is quoted as saying

“people don’t need insurance because they are going to die…..they need insurance because they are going to live”

Our Debt Philosophy

Responsibly borrowing money to achieve your objectives.

The ‘Planning for Life’ Debt Philosophy provides some guidelines for borrowing money, whether that be a mortgage, a line of credit or a margin loan. For some of our clients, borrowing money may be used to accelerate the process of wealth creation or achieve an objective in a shorter time frame.

‘Planning for Life’ believe that:

You must meet certain criteria (ie attitude toward risk, income, cash reserves) for a debt based strategy to be appropriate
You must fully understand the debt strategy and it’s positive and negative implications before we progress
Any debt strategy must be consistent with your goals and objectives
You are regularly kept informed of your debt position

Our Investment Philosophy

Our approach to investment planning is underpinned by a number of key beliefs.

The Planning for Life Investment philosophy is based on the following key principles:

Diversification
Disciplined approach
Risk and return are related
Investment experts
Tailored portfolios

Our Investment Philosophy is used to establish and review our client’s investment portfolios.

Diversification – “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”

Diversification is a genuine way of reducing uncertainty in your portfolio by spreading investments and not taking a concentrated approach. At ‘Planning for Life’ we look to diversify in many ways:

Across multiple asset classes;
Across multiple investment managers;
Across multiple securities.

This has the effect of reducing overall risk and lessens the impact that any single event can have on your portfolio.

Disciplined approach – “Avoid over-reacting”

We believe that truly successful investing requires a highly disciplined approach. It is definitely not about chasing the highest return in any one year but is about taking a strategic approach, avoiding the all too typical mistakes that erode wealth. The biggest mistake an investor can make is reacting to short-term performance as this can significantly destroy value.

Risk and return are related – “Smoothing out the peaks and troughs”

We understand that risk has a different meaning for each investor but, when we look at portfolio risk we consider the volatility – or the degree to which investments fluctuate. Volatility and return are related and, in general, investments with higher volatility can be expected to have higher returns – a premium for accepting the greater fluctuations – whereas lower volatility investments are expected to offer lower returns – reflecting their greater stability. This is called the risk/return trade off.

When we construct client portfolios we consider the risk/return trade off by balancing volatility and expected return to not only meet your goals, but also smooth out the peaks and troughs.

Investment experts – “Trust an Expert”

Many investors spend a great deal of time selecting and managing their own portfolios rather than utilising the skills of investment experts. Often there is a cost of trying to pick your own portfolios. A US study by research group Dalbar Inc* found that over a 20 year period ending 2005 the US share index (S&P 500) returned 12.98%p.a. This outperformed the average investor by almost 10%p.a. which is the same as turning $100,000 into $180,000 as opposed to $1.3million.

We believe that experts do not get caught up in the emotion of investing and have the resource capacity to undertake an enormous amount of research, detailed analysis and performance monitoring of the thousands of investment choices available in Australia.

Tailored portfolios – “Adapted specifically for you”

Planning for Life believe that portfolios should be tailored specifically to your circumstances, taking into account your goals and objectives and your views on risk and return – in fact we may need to construct multiple portfolios to account for your different objectives (e.g. buying a home in a few years and retiring in 30 years).

Implementing our Advice

To implement our investment philosophy, ‘Planning for Life’ has created a series of centrally researched and maintained portfolios. Each portfolio has a strategic asset allocation and is designed to give access to a well diversified investment solution with good risk control and a well balanced mix of assets, managers and securities.