War and Peace
War and Peace
I suspect that you will have seen the promotion for the BBC1 Sunday night drama – Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”. The story, one of the longest written, but still “short” at 1,440 pages and 561,093 words when compared against the 10 volumes of “Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus” and a massive 1,954,300 words for which the certainty of the author is questionable.
One of the many criticisms of the financial services industry has of itself is the amount of information that “needs” to be provided to investors. The prospect of reading a report containing jargon and frankly often dull, uninspiring information is… well….uninspiring.
Improvements for 2016
We have worked hard over the years to reduce our versions of “War and Peace” generally by providing a summary letter together with an Appendices. The information is helpful, to some extent important, but often hard to produce in any succinct manner. There are other agendas to consider too – the regulator wants to be assured that investors are given sufficient facts and risk warnings, whilst the professional indemnity insurers want to ensure that every possible loophole is addressed to avoid any grounds for complaint.
Of course getting documents right is important, as highlighted in the BBC’s opening episode, which concerns the Will and beneficiaries of Count Bezukhov, as often is the case… where there’s a Will, there’s a crowd..
So for those of you that have received reports over the last couple of years or so, I wonder if you have any comments or thoughts about how we might continue to make some improvements – after all we are attempting to explain how we propose you handle your money. I welcome your feedback.
The BBC have condensed the novel into 6 episodes on Sunday evenings at 9pm. Click here for further information and the BBC i-player.
Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA
You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk