5 Top Reasons Why Women Should Review Their Super

#everyoneneedsaplan to ensure their superannuation is working for them. Whether single or in a relationship; working full-time or part-time, now more than ever it is important that women review their superannuation requirements regularly.  Women need to take control of their superannuation to ensure they are making their investments work for them as effectively as possible to ensure a financially comfortable retirement. 

Here are 5 reasons Why Women Need to Review Their Superannuation

1. Consolidate your Superannuation

The primary reason why women need to look at their super is to ensure that they are keeping track of what superannuation investment funds they actually have.

If women are not working in a full-time position, they may have several superannuation investment funds from employers that they have worked for over the years and this could add up to a significant investment over time.  You should consolidate your superannuation into one fund to avoid paying fees on multiple superannuation funds and save money.  Consider the amount of fees you are paying across several superannuation accounts and what you could save.

2. Your Family's Financial Plan

Usually, although this has changed significantly in recent years, the woman in a relationship is not necessarily the primary income earner, and therefore their superannuation is not considered a significant part of the overall financial plan.

However, superannuation can play an important part of a family's financial plan, as both partners' superannuation investments have the same contribution limits thereby effectively doubling the amount of tax deductible superannuation contributions, and non-tax-deductible superannuation contributions.

Depending on your age, a woman just like a man can contribute up to $35,000 per year into superannuation and claim a tax deduction, which will enable the woman to reduce overall tax paid on her income, and increase retirement savings.  If only the man's income is taken into account when tax planning, the maximum tax deduction for salary packaging is only $35,000 per year.

3. Leading into retirement

It is important to ensure as much investment capital can be accumulated in tax effective structures, to increase the retirement savings of a single woman or a family, as there are significant tax benefits for using superannuation investments to fund retirement income.

4. In Retirement

In the retirement phase of anyone's financial plan, the use of superannuation is critically important as allocated pension investments (purchased with superannuation investments) are not taxed. Neither the income or capital gain is taxed, and thereforethe more money is accumulated within superannuation leading up to retirement, the more tax-free investments can be used to fund retirement.

There are no restrictions to withdrawing monies from anallocated pension once you are retired and are at least 60 years of age, but there are restrictions as to how much money you can contribute to superannuation whether you are planning a tax deduction or not for the contribution.

Therefore it is possible to double the tax-deductible contributions when both partners in the relationship use their superannuation investments.

In addition, if the woman takes time out of the workplace to have children, the partner is able to continue to contribute to their superannuation in order to ensure the family's retirement savings are kept on track and may also be eligible for a superannuation contribution tax rebate for doing so.

5. Life Insurance

Another important reason to make sure the woman knows what superannuation funds she has, is because a lot of superannuation funds include some life insurances automatically which may have up to a significant amount of insurance that you may not even know you have, unless you check your superannuation funds.

#everyoneneedsaplan and whether the woman is a part-time worker or a full-time career person, her superannuation is vitally important to both her and if applicable her family's retirement and if included in a comprehensive financial plan, will likely increase the overall wealth of the family leading up to and throughout retirement.

If you do not have a Financial Advisor and would like more information about our Financial Planning Services, and reviewing your Superannuation requirements, please don't hesitate to Contact Us and arrange your Free Financial Assessment today - because.... #everyoneneedsaplan!