Recent SMSF research performed by Macquarie and the SMSF Professionals’ Association of Australia has shown individuals intending to set up this type of super fund are often concerned about their own financial worries.
The 2013 “SMSF Active Management Report” showed 63 per cent of people intending to establish an SMSF had conversations within their family units about their financial concerns.
“There are a couple of reasons for this. The average assets of those people intending to set up an SMSF is much less than those who have already got one, so they’re building at this point,” Macquarie division director and research manager Gary Lembit said.
“The other thing is those intending [to set up an SMSF] are highly populated by small business people or in particular family business people.
“When you think about a family business, one of the big topics of conversation is how the business is going and the financial concerns of the business, so it’s only natural that those sorts of things become a topic of conversation.”
According to Lembit, acknowledging that characteristic of people wanting to set up an SMSF and attending to those concerns was where advisers could really make a difference.
“This is where really good quality of advice comes in helping people through those financial concerns and helping them understand how the self-managed super fund can help them in the future, as well as good ways of operating their business,” he said.
An associated characteristic among individuals already running an SMSF or looking to set one up in the near future is the practice of having open and free-flowing discussions among the family about the running of the fund.
“Those people that have had an SMSF for a long period of time have recognised the benefit of having conversations where they are checking at regular intervals to make sure things are on track,” Lembit said.
“This is a key thing about being active. We talk about active management of self-managed super and there’s a natural tendency to think about investing, but active management is much more than about investing, it’s actually about monitoring, checking, reviewing and it’s talking to experts.”
The study was conducted in February and surveyed 2017 individuals online.
