Macquarie adds life to super

Macquarie has revamped its range of superannuation and allocated pension plans to include a number of estate planning initiatives and life insurance.

Macquarie has revamped its range of superannuation and allocated pension plans to include a number of estate planning initiatives and life insurance.

The plans will now give investors the ability to choose the beneficiaries of the su-per fund in the event of death and how much they will receive. These binding nominations are only possible because of legislation passed by the federal govern-ment last year. Prior to the legislation being passed, the trustee took into account the wishes of the deceased but had final say on how the superannuation assets were distributed.

Macquarie Investment Management associate director David Shirlow says the old rules were based on a “dark ages mentality”.

“The Superannuation Complaints Tribunal is littered with cases where trustees have got it wrong on distributions of superannuation assets,” he says.

Shirlow says Macquarie is one of the first super fund providers to offer binding nominations.

“One of the biggest issues that Macquarie Superannuation has addressed is the is-sue of control over who receives a super fund member’s super when they die,” he says.

“Usually the fund trustees have it in their power to decide who, amongst the mem-ber’s dependants or estate, will get the benefit.

“Binding nominations leave no room for trustee discretion or discrimination in de-termining the beneficiaries. Therefore, our fund members have peace of mind that their wishes will be taken care of after they die.”

Under the new revamp of its range of super and allocated pension plans, Macquarie has also added a child allocated pension system. It is designed to ensure there is enough super to pay for the child’s education or other special needs in case the fund member dies early.

“Importantly, income streams arranged for children can be provided with benefits that would otherwise exceed reasonable benefit limits (RBLs). They can also be significantly more tax effective than testamentary trusts,” Shirlow says.