Protection and
pensions.

Protection and pensions are the part of your wealth that works when something goes wrong — an accident, an illness, a premature death — and the part that will have to replace your income once you stop earning it. In most families this area is a drawer of policies signed in different years, almost always proposed by whoever was selling them: nobody has ever checked which risks they actually cover and which they leave exposed. My work starts with the drawer, not the catalogue.

I begin by mapping the risks: what each scenario would do to income and wealth, who would bear the consequences and for how long. I then read the existing contracts line by line — sums insured, exclusions, waiting periods, costs — and set them against that map. Only then do we talk about solutions: where the wealth can absorb the loss, the answer is not to insure; where it cannot, I compare offers from several insurers and point to the one that buys the most protection for the premium paid. Pensions follow the same method: I estimate the gap between final income and expected pension, then size contributions and vehicles on that number, using tax relief as far as it genuinely helps. I place no policies and receive no commission from insurers: the comparison stays free.

Decisions on protection and pensions never sit in a compartment: a beneficiary clause touches succession, the deductibility of contributions touches tax, insured capital interacts with the portfolio. When the area reaches into the other dimensions of your wealth I bring in the professionals of my network — contracts are always signed through authorised intermediaries, tax and legal matters go to the qualified specialists — and the reading widens to the direction of the Family Office. The judgement on what is needed, how much and at what price remains mine: and since I earn nothing when you sign a policy, I can also tell you when the right answer is not to sign it.