 Start planning for your retirement. Plan now and make your golden years golden. Welcome to part two of the three-part series on retirement planning. The series is brought to you by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and the National Television Network. In part one, we touched on making the transition from work to retirement. And in part two, we will be getting into the nitty-gritty of things where we speak on estate planning, maintaining property value, insurance, and NIC benefits. My name is Elijah Williams. I'm the moderator for today. I'm joined by my three panelists to my immediate right, Miss Trudy Glasgow. She's an attorney at law. Center stage, Mr. Linus Bernardin, who is a representative of the National Insurance Corporation. And to the far end, we have Mrs. Vuna Henville, who is a representative from NARGICO Insurance's Limited. Good day to you guys. We can probably just go straight into the discussion as I indicated. In part one, we touched on some of the ways that people could get themselves ready to take that transition from the workforce into retirement. Quite a few areas of discussion came up, but we want to zone in on some specific things. Maybe we could start with you, Miss Glasgow, from the standpoint of estate planning. What is it like in your field when it comes to estate planning? What advice would you provide them with? Well, thank you for having me. Well, in terms of estate planning, largely what we look at is wills, and we encourage persons to do wills as soon as possible. People tend to think that they should do it when they retire, and it's actually a little late in the day at that point. You should have done a will well before then, but certainly if you're retiring and you haven't done a will, I encourage you to go out and get a will. Now what is a will? A will is essentially a document that the testator yourself is advising what you would like to be done to your assets after you pass away. So the will does not take effect until you've passed away, and that's a very important fact. And so if you are of sound mind, you're over 18 or over, and you have to make a will particularly if you have children and you have assets, it is important to make a will so you make provisions for what you would like to have done with your assets. We generally hear, especially when it comes to kids, we hear the term illegitimate child. Could you probably shed some light on that? Because I think some people think it's just automatic that if you have a kid, especially if you acquire a child through marriage, that it's just automatic that if something happens to you that whatever assets that you have will probably be equally shared. How does that work out? Okay, and this is why we talk about a will. A will will dictate exactly what happens to your assets for want of a better word. If it is that you don't for whatever reason get along with your children, you can leave it to your favorite aunt or your cat. And we have had persons who do that or a friend of yours. If you don't make a will, it means that you've died in testate and that means that then members of the family will go to court to decide what happens to your assets. When you talk about legitimate and illegitimate children, this is a little more involved. If it is that you're a single man or woman, there is a provision in the civil code which says that your children will inherit. But that is a little complicated because it depends if you get married subsequently, or did you get married and have other children. So all these things have to be looked at before the courts will decide how your assets will be divided. I think people normally think that if somebody is deceased, that automatically the spouse gets full control over everything. Is that in actuality what the case is? It's not exactly right. There are other deciding factors. If you, let's say you are married and you pass away and you have children, your spouse is entitled to a share, entitled to a half share, and then your children are entitled to a half share. We're talking about if you haven't made a will. If you've made a will, you can leave everything to your spouse and persons do that, or you can leave everything to your children, leave out your spouse. It's up to you. But if you die without a will, the law then takes effect in the civil code. It's from section 579, which talks about legitimate children, but also what the divisions will be. So it's really important to consider what you would want because a will is something that you can change at any point, and there are persons who have made more than one will in their lifetime, and it is the one that is the most recent that takes effect, and others can be ripped up to shreds. What about common law situations? How does the absence of a will affect the common law situation? Okay, again, if you are living with someone, again the question becomes, do you have children? Don't you have children? If in a situation where you don't have children, the common law spouse may be entitled to certain things if the parents have to see. So if you've died and your parents are still there, your parents actually inherit. And this may not be your wish. You may like to leave something to your common law spouse, and if you have made provisions and had a will, then the law takes effect, and that means that your parents actually jump ahead of your common law spouse in that situation. Very interesting. You guys, you can feel free to join in the discussion. Also, with our medical insurance, we do not have a will for you to bring a will, really, but on the enrollment form, if you have life insurance, there's a part where you have to complete who you want to leave the life amount for. If it's your cat, as Ms. Glasgow said, or if it's your common law spouse. So without this being completed, then you'll have to face the call for a letter of administration, for us to know exactly who that money goes to. In a scenario like that, Ms. Glasgow, does that form being filled out at the insurance company serve in effect as sort of a will for that allocation of your... No. A will is a separate document. It has to be in a prescribed form, okay? So you can have a written will. You can actually go away and just write something and sign it. We would advise against that because your relatives can actually challenge that. So what you should do is go to a lawyer, and the lawyer will put it in the correct form as prescribed by law, so that there are actually two notaries present. It has to be registered. It does not have to be registered, but it has to be signed off by two notaries in your presence so that it is witnessed, and actually each page is signed off as well. So it's a very involved process. This is helpful because when you have life insurance, this is very, very helpful. Ms. Henville mentioned letters of administration. This is when you don't have a will. You do a probate if you have a will, but you do letters of administration if you don't have a will. And the letters of administration means that you've gone to court, and this document come forward as to what you would want to done with your life insurance. Well, what about other assets? What about other assets? What do you want to happen to that? You haven't made provision for that. So then the court would make a decision based on varying factors on what happens after that. Let's just assume someone is not of sound mind. What happens then? Wow. Okay. If someone is not of sound mind, it depends on when that happened. You have individuals, and you have to be very careful as an attorney because I remembered early in my practice being called to a hospital where someone was on their, sad to say, had a few days to live. And my boss at the time took one look at the situations that were leaving. We never engaged with him or anything like that because we didn't realize he was so dire. But in speaking to the doctors, we realized that this is beyond the pale and we cannot. He's not of sound mind, it's not the correct term here, but he's not capable mentally to make a decision. He's on the DRS, some sort of DRS. Death is imminent. Yeah, his death is imminent. So his decision-making factors are obscured here. So we can't do a will at this point. Now that is quite different to someone who may be an elderly person and so on. But he's very sharp mentally and is not feeling well maybe in bed for a few days or something like that. But very sharp and you get advice. The doctor would then advise the lawyer, look, yes, she's able to and you can make that decision for yourself that they're able to do the will because a will can be challenged and what can be challenged is your mental state at the time of doing the will. If you're mentally on sound just to make in the will, that's an entirely different matter and the will will stand. But if at the time you were doing the will you're seen to be mentally sound you're fine. Okay, we do for a short break. When we return we'll have some more discussions on the issue. I noticed that you built your retaining wall on my property. You'll have to give me my land back or compensate me for that. My contractor isn't dumb. I trust that he will not build anything and this situation does not require you to go to court. Looks like we have to go to mediation here. Mediation is a way people resolve conflicts like this. Someone, a third party comes to speak to both parties. This person is called the mediator. The mediator is impartial. He or she makes sure that communication between both parties is effective and efficient. So, the mediator is a judge? No, the mediator is not a judge. Mediators, unlike judges do not decide cases or impose settlements. Let me get a mediator to handle this retaining wall and that kitchen. Kitchen? Yes. Your kitchen also falls on my land. Let me call the mediator. And welcome back if you just joining us. We are having a discussion on retirement planning. This is part two of a three-part series and joining me is my esteemed panelist to my immediate right, Mr. Trudy Glasgow, attorney at law, Mr. Linus Bernadine who is center stage representative of the National Insurance Corporation and the Mrs. Bernadine representative of the National Insurance System. Mr. Bernadine, let's go to you. The NIC. Tell us from a standpoint of benefits what the NIC has in place for retirees. Good day, Elijah. Thanks for having me. What the first thing I'll say is you need to get ready for retirement. Retirement cannot just come and you're unaware that it's coming. So if I speak to a group of people I'll tell them, within five years of retirement you should come down to the NIC to find out exactly what you are going to get. Because you need to know what the amount is so you can budget for it. So preparation for retirement, that may be a good time to see if you can section of your house so you can rent a portion because whatever money that you're going to get from NIC you need to bear in mind that it might not be able to pay your mortgage that you are going to fall sick that you got to pay them you have to pay your phone bill and all of those commitments must be met. So you need to get ready for retirement you come down to any of our offices to find exactly what your amount is going to be. And once you have a pretty good idea what it's going to be then you can start gauging whether you can take it at age 60 which is the minimum age at which you can take it or the actual retirement age which is 65. Bear in mind however that if you decided to take it at age 60 that your pension is going to be modified the actual retirement age is 65. Why is it modified? Because we want you to work up until you are 65. Because the way the system operates is active workers are now paying pensions for those out there and when that percentage or when that ratio begins to get closer and closer it means that you are beginning to have a problem it means we are unable to collect enough to pay current retirement expenditure and we need you to stay in working as long as you can possibly work. However if you decided to take it at age 60 or whenever you decide to take it the minimum number of months that you require for retirement is 180. Now that doesn't have to be consecutive in any way. So you can have 16,000 one in 1979 once together it comes up to 180. You become entitled to a minimum pension or a minimum percentage pension. So let's look at it in one of two ways. A minimum of an average is 40 which is the minimum amount that you are going to get or the maximum is 60 of an average. What that average is is determined on the number of years that you've worked on, the number of years that you've contributed plus the size of your contribution. So there is no minimum contribution as it is. So I have seen people coming with say 1,000, I remember working in customer service and I saw a lady came in with what total contributions were $1,300. But she had been getting a pension for a number of years because she worked in places that the money whatever they were contributing it wasn't big money so to speak. So 25 cents can be a month $500 can be a month. However together they create $180 which is the minimum required. Once you have that you become entitled to your pension and you will get that for as long as you live. If there's one thing that's guaranteed and Ike's going to pay you for as long as you live. Let me throw a question at you. The perception is that your pensions will be calculated on your last few years of earnings. Is that accurate? Is this a scenario where if you are a very high earner in your earlier years and you probably have regressed in terms of salary. Is it a scenario where you really need to come and check to ensure that you get in or you're going to get what you think you're going to get. That's an interesting question actually. Yes and no. The pension for most people they earn more to the tail end of the careers as opposed to the earlier years. So you begin you've left so after you left whatever you enter as a clerk eventually you become a manager and you earn more. As such once you earn more you contribute more. Yes So to answer your question however no it is not exactly right. So we use the best five years of your contributions wherever it is so it can be at the beginning of your career or it can be at the end of the career the best five years wherever they are whether it's 79, whether it's 80 whether it's 2015 wherever they are we use the best five years to calculate that average which I spoke of and these are the figures that I use to calculate your pension. However every month that you contribute is important because they add up to the 180 which is the minimum requirement to be entitled to a pension in the first place. Earlier on Miss Glasgow spoke about wheels and estate and so someone may retire and receive that pension however that person will eventually die. So the question is kind of one will the pension know one cannot will the pension because analysis legislation is quite clear it's about survivorship. Survivorship is simply it's a relationship of dependency so were you dependent on the person who died. So the question is whether you have to be married or whether it need to be a common law no the legislation speaks to dependency so if you are living with somebody for more than five years then that's dependency there is a relationship you understand there is a relationship between between the two of you you pay the electricity I buy the food so that's how the legislation speaks to survivorship so if you die as a pensioner then your spouse whether married or unmarried your spouse becomes entitled to that pension however who is your spouse so in our own society we have peculiar kind of society so a man or woman can be married but he is left or she has left her husband for a number of years and as such she has now begun living with somebody else so why does the wife may come forward the legal wife may come forward in terms of determining who is the survivor and I see looks at the relationship the dependency was the wife dependent on the pensioner and if that relationship could be established then whoever he lived with whoever cared for him a household with that's the person who becomes entitled very interesting points of discussion a whole lab thought we'll continue the discussion when we get back we'll discuss how can we think about the children think about the children how will we say them and calls and GMOs are not the solution use organic and join excessive agrochemical use additives and genetically modified foods are harmful to health and the environment join the good food revolution Revolution, Grow, Buy and Consume Organic, a message from Rye St. Lucia and the Ministry of Sustainable Development with funding from the GEF Small Grants Program, UNDP. And welcome back, again we are discussing part two or three part series on retirement planning and let's just get straight into back into the discussion. We have a representative from NGICO Insurance here, Mrs. Henville. Mrs. Henville, when people get to the age of retirement, obviously there are certain things that become of permanent concern. People want to know how they could save up monies, can they maintain the insurance premiums, because I mean we all know that what NIC does is give you a contribution. It may not be enough, as Mr. Boone and Dean said, for you to maintain the standard of living that you were once used to. People tend to fall back on insurance, especially in the area of medical insurance, when as you know the older you get, sometimes your health begins to win. What are some of the ways that somebody who is coming up on retirement can deal with the insurance companies to ensure that they maintain good levels of premiums, they maintain their coverage, etc. We have scenarios where people are part of medical insurances and upon retirement that goes out the window. What are some of the ways that people can deal with the insurance companies? Luckily there's an article, and what we offer right now, we do offer retirees cover so persons we have in short. So acceptance age is 18 to 60. As proposal stages, we accept those persons. Going into retirement, you will not have any trouble because we already put the retirement benefits and the retirement premium in that proposal that's already accepted by the business person. So you have retirees cover. So it's an easy transition into going to the retirement stage where you get certain benefits. We do offer that. Really also, when persons are retired and they pass, say they pass and they have a family that they have to take care of, we have that coverage where the dependent spouse would automatically be the primary insurer. So your spouse pass, he was 65, and there's a spouse, there's the dependent spouse. We do not say, okay, I know you're sick and okay, the primary insurer passed, your husband passed. We no longer want to see. This person become the primary insurer, apnagical. So they just need to maintain the premiums. They need to maintain the premiums. Once you're 65 and you pay in your premiums, again, once you have retirees cover, we do keep you on the plan. There's coverage for you. We do not limit them to say, okay, you cannot get this because you're retired. The benefits are the same for retirees or persons below 65 years. Some people, myself, for example, would choose to become an entrepreneur. That would be their retirement plan simply because a business has the ability to generate revenues even after you physically stop working. From a standpoint of protecting an investment of that nature, you look at business insurance. What would you advise somebody who is an entrepreneur, a current entrepreneur or somebody seeking to venture into being a business owner from a standpoint of business insurance and being sure that they're covered even after they get to the retirement age? We offer small group plans, minimum persons four and maximum 10 as a small group. We do offer that for small business owners. The same age range between 18 to age 60. We still offer that same. But it will be lower premiums because the person just starting on, we do not have much money, the salary is not too high. The premiums are a little lower than our number group comprehensive plans. What about providing insurance for the business itself? If I'm retired, I now have staff working for me. I'm probably concerned about somebody being a bit shady. Is there any sort of insurance coverage for scenarios like that or probably just fire catches at my business place? What are you? I mean, it is my retirement plan, so how can I protect that? Yeah, we do offer that. Unfortunately, it cannot give so much information. But if you do, you call magical, we offer different types of policies. How do you find yourself? Actually as a business owner, I do have contents insurance. I'm very interested in your insurance for businesses as well, for individuals in there. So we'll need to talk afterwards. How do you, from a standpoint of law misclass, how do you manage the varying scenarios? Because you may have somebody who has no will, who has beneficiaries listed on their private insurance plan, but they may have a spouse, et cetera, listed at NIC. How do you manage somebody who has passed and how do you deal with the assets? Well, okay, so we're talking about this, they've passed away and family members perhaps come in and indicated, well, we last for various documents, this is going to become a court matter and we're going to do a letters of administration so that we can find out as much as we can about the individual who passed away, if they have any relatives that didn't, it weren't on, say, the insurance or life insurance, if they had life insurance. So we have to have a holistic picture of the individual, particularly if it wasn't a client of yours and be able to proceed to court with all that information. So, I mean, for clients of mine, I always indicate, because I do a lot of divorces, I indicate to them that if they have a will that once the divorce is finalized, they need to do their will again, because that actually negates the will and a lot of people will realize that. So you can just rip your will up the moment your divorce is finalized, because the law provides that it's no longer valid. So once your marital status changes, this is very important to know that. So if you have a lawyer, your lawyer will always advise you, look, you need to make a will. For those who don't have a lawyer who just didn't get around to doing it, I'll, when I retire, then I'll do a will. I would really encourage them not to do that. My own dad said to me, I did my will when I was 35, and, you know, he had his three daughters by then, he didn't have his grandson, but he's made provisions for that. So you need to be actively involved and think through what you're doing. Obviously, if your assets change substantially between 35, and I won't see my dad's age, but older, or now you have a grandson, you may need to revisit your will, because perhaps you want to leave something to your grandson who was not born at the time when you made your will at 35. So these are the sorts of scenarios we look at. We look at the individual client and tailor our advice to suit them. Very interesting discussions. Time is already upon us. The time goes by so quickly. I guess we were having a lot of fun on the program. But I've noticed one common theme with all of you when you've spoken, that the time for retirement planning is now. It's not about the waiting until you get to 50 or 55, in the case if you're a civil servant, et cetera. The time for planning is now. It puts you at a more advantageous position. It allows you to make adjustments when your life situation changes. And all of you have basically encouraged people to start as early as possible in terms of getting their premiums sorted, ensuring that they are on track with their NIC benefits. And of course, in terms of leaving a last will in testament. Thank you very much for joining us on the panel today. Hopefully you guys at home can join us when part three of the series rolls around on retirement planning. Miss Trudy Glasgow, thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Bernadine. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Start planning for your retirement. Plan now and make your golden years golden. Come, let's make it happen.