Xentum-Moneyscope and divorce
Imagine you're advising a client who's going through a divorce but you have a feeling that the tried-and-trusted method of calculating maintenance payments over time isn't quite up to the task. What do you do?
Well, in the case of Adam Carolan, you turn to Moneyscope.
Adam is a Chartered Financial Planner at Cheshire-based Xentum and, among its clients, are people who are navigating divorce. As Adam explains in his blog post at the financial planning consultancy's site - 'I'm afraid you're running out of money, Mrs Duxbury' - it's been custom and practice to use a formula, devised in the 1992 legal case of Duxbury v Duxbury, to calculate a lump-sum financial settlement capable of delivering a lifetime's income.
But it occurred to the team at Xentum that, since 1992, life expectancy has increased and, given the experience of the past 5+ years, the anticipated performance of investments then may well be too optimistic today. Both factors would surely have an effect on the kind of lump sum settlement that would be required today?
So Xentum turned to Moneyscope to test their theory and - in a really interesting post - they have published what they discovered here. (Clue: Xentum were right.)