Mr & Mrs Dannan

Mr Dannan is a lorry driver and Mrs Dannan is a part-time support worker. They live in Devon with their son, 20, daughter, 16 along with Fudge the cat and their two dogs, Izzy and Joe.

We were starting to worry about whether we would ever receive a State Pension and thinking that we should start planning for our future.

We were already working with a financial adviser, but weren’t happy with the service. We would receive print-outs of pension documents in the post, but there was no explanation of what they meant for us. We rarely met with our adviser and even then, we had to ask for the meetings!

So we decided to look for a new financial adviser; someone who would spend time with us and explain our finances in a way we could understand.

We met Kevin via a mutual friend and suddenly things became much easier. Kevin explained everything in a really clear way with information that was easy to digest.

Kevin reviewed our insurance policies to make sure that we had the right level of protection in place for our family. He also reviewed our mortgage and advised us to stay with our existing provider. Most importantly, he took charge of our pensions; making sure that we are paying in enough and that they are performing in a way that will meet our needs when we come to retire.

There were so many aspects of our pensions and retirement planning that we simply didn’t know about. For example, we had assumed that we shouldn’t access our pensions until we were 65. However, Kevin has made us aware that it will make sense for us to access certain pensions much sooner than that, and has given us options for how we may use these opportunities to secure our plans for retirement.

We meet Kevin every six months, which is great! We now know that we’re receiving proactive advice and that we have an expert keeping an eye on our finances.