Personal or National Asset?
Super is an important personal asset, but many people fail to take the time to understand it or optimise it.
It seems that our options for managing it are reducing, and that politicians are more often talking about it in a way that is carefully crafted to dilute the idea of super as a personal asset.
Unfortunately, the idea of super as a collective national resource is becoming more widely accepted.
Politics of Super
Discussions between super platforms and the government occur regularly around how to spend/invest the nation’s $3.5 trillion of total super, and current political opinion supports super being available for investment in politically essential infrastructure projects within Australia.
But is this type of investment in the best interest of the individuals who own the asset?
Superannuation products have different ways of investing your money. One important difference is whether they invest in unlisted (not publicly traded) or listed (publicly traded) assets. Some people claim that unlisted assets are less likely to go up and down in value compared to listed assets. However, it’s not yet clear if unlisted assets really bring in higher average returns than listed assets, and the regulator is unlikely to examine this matter.
The government’s super investments are not publicly traded and are only valued from time to time. Some of these investments are considered illiquid, which means they can’t be easily turned into cash, a factor not reported on and understood by the public so far.
To a large extent, the public seems uninterested in the concept of super as a personal or national asset. Subsequently, they suffer the consequences with a suboptimal asset balance at retirement.
SuperWiser
The public needs to become aware of what’s happening with their super and learn how to manage this important personal resource. The first step is to find a reliable source of information and make well-informed decisions. But the challenge is that many individuals can’t or won’t pay a lot of money for comprehensive financial advice. As a result, they end up making decisions based on marketing rather than real facts.
There is a need for a high-quality, low-cost alternative to holistic financial advice and SuperWiser meets this need.
The SuperWiser client portal is a unique offering within the financial services industry. It provides workers in the accumulation phase of their super journey with access to quality information, service and advice to help them understand and cultivate their super as a significant personal asset.
Optimising Super
Optimal super outcomes do not materialise by accident. You must set goals, implement a strategic plan, review regularly and make updates as conditions dictate. The SuperWiser portal helps you easily manage all of this.
The first step is for SuperWiser to review your current super strategy (or lack of) and use this to calculate your baseline projected income in retirement and provide an indication for improvement.
The initial Super Review is free of charge, with no obligation to continue.
Should you decide to continue, you go through a process of confirming product selection, establishing tangible goals and objectives, implementing contribution and investment strategies based on personal advice recommendations and provided with account balance milestone targets.
A one-off cost of $220 (inc GST) is involved with setting up your improved super strategy.
Optimising super is not a set-and-forget exercise. It requires considered and consistent, active management every 12 to 24 months. SuperWiser automatically notifies you to review your super and will recommend updates to your super strategy in alignment with your goals and objectives and as market conditions dictate.
A one-off cost of $110 (inc GST) is involved with updating your super strategy.
Employer Plan or Personal Choice
When you commence work with an employer, you must decide whether to join the employer’s super plan (if they have one) or make a personal choice as to which product you want your super contributions paid into.
It is essential to access relevant information on which to base this decision.
SuperWiser can help you work out if joining an employer plan would benefit you. Choosing to stay with your existing super product (because it’s the easiest thing to do) without first comparing the benefits of joining an employer plan can be a costly mistake.
Have a Look
For younger workers, review your super (at no cost) and see if there is an opportunity to do better than you expected.
For workers with twenty years or less left in the workforce, use SuperWiser to manage your super asset so it is consistently better invested with future market conditions.