WHILE many planners shy away from estate planning, Tynan MacKenzie believes it should not be overlooked, but rather integrated into ongoing business processes.
Chief executive officer Tony Fenning says the boutique financial planning group, which began in 1994, introduced estate planning after clients began asking about extra services outside a traditional will.
“We found this coming up more and more, with our clients asking ‘can you help us?’ So two-and-a-half years ago the management group at Tynan MacKenzie made a conscious decision that our clients needed access to this service,” Fenning says.
The group used its Brisbane office as a pilot to test the estate planning services with the help of former Hunt & Hunt senior associate Chris Wyeth.
Fenning says it became obvious from his discussions with Wyeth that writing a will, which would have previously dealt with all the client’s assets, is simply not enough today. He says two complicating factors have arisen.
“Firstly, superannuation rules of distribution of wealth are unrelated to how it might pass under a will, and secondly, more people have non-traditional lifestyles, such as second relationships and so the direction that a normal will would send the money is contrary to where the super sends the money nowadays,” Fenning says.
“Gradually, what we’re doing is using our review process as a method to take them through all these issues. We’re integrating it into our ongoing service,” he says.
However, almost three years on, Tynan McKenzie has recruited four people with estate planning backgrounds, including two who were headhunted. The group now has estate planning specialists in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. Each estate planner specialist is a qualified lawyer.
The rest of the group’s advisers began as chartered accountants, but with in-house training have made the move across to financial planning .
—Kate Kachor
