Bassline by Cavendish Ware
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Bassline by Cavendish Ware
Episode 6 - Why Protection Matters with Matt Smith
In this episode, Matt Smith who works in client Support for Cavendish Ware talks about is own personal experience of loss, and how important protection was to helping him in the most difficult of times.
Hi, it's Lou Carlos, the host of the Bancadelic Financial Services podcast in Chicago, and in all my years of podcasting, I have never heard a story like the one you're going to hear from Matt Smith, who went from widower to customer and eventually employee at Cavendishware. Listen up a first-hand boots on the ground illustration of why insurance is important and why it made such a huge difference in Matt's life.
SPEAKER_02:The UK Facebook Wealth Management Fund that provides free both.
SPEAKER_03:And now is your host Dave Wallace.
SPEAKER_04:So welcome to today's episode. And we have Matt Smith from Cavendishware. So Matt, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do at Cavendishware?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, yes, I'm Matt. I work in client support for Cavendishware. And in essence, we do all the support work to make sure that the clients have a joined up experience through the advisor and through the support team. So basically, it's doing anything on that journey. So from doing review packs to arranging meetings to sorting out life assurance, arranging quotes, etc., just doing everything to make the advisor's job easy and acting as a link between the client and the advisor, basically.
SPEAKER_04:In a business like Cavendish Ware, which is all about ensuring that clients have a great relationship with their advisors, it's a pretty critical piece of the puzzle.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, very much so. And actually, it's one of the reasons why I joined Cavendish Ware because I'm actually a client of Cavendishware. Really? Yep, I'm a client of Cavendishware.
SPEAKER_04:So Poach a Tone Gamekeeper or the other way around.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that kind of thing. You know, I've worked at Santander as an area manager and an advisor for over 30 years. And I retired Cavendishware, I was a client of theirs and loved what they were doing so much. Decided I'd get involved, got bored with being retired and got back involved.
SPEAKER_04:Fantastic. And you've got a bit of, I guess, a story, a history with Cavendishware, which I was keen to chat about today because I think it's very relevant to some of the topics that we've been talking about in previous podcasts around protection and life insurance and assurance. So I wondered if you'd mind talking us through the history and you know how you ended up in Cavendish Sware as an employee.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So as you can probably tell by looking at me, I'm of a certain age.
SPEAKER_04:I was going to say, you look like you retired very early, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_01:So well, 55, I retired and managed to last 18 months, but now I'm back at work. But listening to Roy's podcast about protection and the importance made me just relive some of the experiences in my life. And I thought it might be interesting to share them to put some reality on protection. So if I go back to when I was young, I met my wife and got married when I was 19. She was 18. We had our first son, David, at age 22. Everybody said it wouldn't last. It did. But one of the first interesting things we looked at was that my wife was an only child, and she was very concerned about if something happened to both of us at the same time, what would happen to the kids.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So we actually did a will very, very early on in our life to do a will.
SPEAKER_04:Which I guess is extraordinary, isn't it? You know, because I think a lot of people wait until it's far too late.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. And you know, little was I to realise as the years rolled on how important that will have been. But at the time, my wife couldn't stand my mum, so she didn't want the kids to be left with my mother-in-law. So her abiding reason for doing a will was actually to make sure the kids would be brought up by who she wanted, which again is important because I don't think people actually think that something could happen to you both at the same time. But it didn't, thankfully. Then if we move on in time, in 2002, my wife was diagnosed with leukemia. And after nine long months fighting it, we had a meeting with someone who she used to call Dr. Death because she was a doctor who never ever came to see us with any good news. Right. And sadly, she said, You've got four weeks to live.
SPEAKER_04:Oh no.
SPEAKER_01:We can try the chemo again, or you can go home. And my wife said, Nah, I want to go home. So it was tough. We actually did have medical insurance. We never used it because with leukemia, you have to be basically in isolation constantly. Right. So basically, the treatment was done on the NHS and they were brilliant. But as a result, the private medical insurance paid out a small lump sum in recognition of the fact that we didn't have to use it.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So that combined with the generosity of friends meant that we could do a trip to Lourdes. Okay. Lourdes in France, not Greg's cricket pitch. And my wife had always wanted to go there, not because she thought she'd get a miracle cure, but she thought she would find, you know, peace. And as a result of that cover and the generosity of friends, we could do a private flight for the day and then come back.
SPEAKER_04:Amazing.
SPEAKER_01:This created memories for the kids, which she was very keen to do along because they were 16, 8, and 7. But it also meant we could do fish and chips on the beach in Brighton, which was something she wanted to do, and a number of little things that she was keen to create memories for. So the other thing that she felt that she had the honour of doing was she could sort her own funeral. Right. And by this stage, she'd kind of developed a gallows humour, and we went to the Undertaker to choose her coffin. And the Undertaker said, In all my 30 years of doing this, I've never had someone actually choose their own coffin. And she just looked at him and said, Well, he'd cock it up, wouldn't he? But the serious point to that is again, she was lucky enough to choose what she wanted, lucky in some ways, I guess. So she could decide what she wanted for her funeral, how she wanted things done, you know, whether she wanted to be cremated, and another reason for putting that in your will because if you don't, no one's gonna know. So again, another reason for doing a will and you know, making sure that stuff's in place. So we move on, and yeah, sadly she passes away. And I went to register the death and was told, yeah, that's fine, the death is registered, but if you want a copy of the death certificate, you've got to pay 11 pounds for it, which was something I never knew, but yeah, you have to pay for a death certificate. But what they didn't tell me was that there's also a bereavement payment that you can claim. And if you don't claim it within, I think three years, then that payment goes. Can you just explain what a bereavement payment is? So basically, if you lose a wife or a husband, the government will give you a one-off payment, or I think it can be paid monthly as well, to assist, obviously, with things like the funeral and getting back on your feet. Sadly, it's something that I didn't know about, so I wasn't able to claim it.
SPEAKER_04:That's interesting. I've never heard of it.
SPEAKER_01:So um no, me neither. So luckily, financially, I could cope, but I think it's important to put it out there for people who are in a financial situation where they can't cope. So then I had to get my head around obviously getting on with life myself. Luckily, I'd taken out life insurance, but nothing prepares you for contacting that life insurance company and you know, registering the death of your wife because I actually felt guilty that I was profiting from her death. Clearly, I wasn't. Now, she was a stay-at-home mum. Money was tight at the time, so we chose to primarily insure me because I was the breadwinner. Luckily, we had a joint policy for the property, so the majority of the mortgage was paid off. And what that did actually was give me breathing space. So it wasn't financially about just paying off the mortgage, it meant that I could come to terms with things and also have time because my company paid sick pay, it bought me time to not only come to terms with things. I mean, we'd been married nearly 20 years when she passed, she was 37, and it gave me time to get to terms with the loss of her and how I was going to move on with my life because I had two young children and one who'd just gone to university in Brighton.
SPEAKER_04:She sounds like a remarkable individual. So I'm sorry about the loss. For many people, you know, they will put policies in place, but for the majority of us, we never have to go and action them.
SPEAKER_01:And you never what? No. You're right, but you know, it's about peace of mind. And yeah, I hope that any policies that Cavendishware set up that people never ever have to claim on them.
SPEAKER_04:Actually, the problem is that with the death comes an awful lot of stuff that needs sorting out, resolving. And actually, if you can kind of take money off the table, that's one less thing to worry about. I imagine for you it was like, Well, how am I going to cope with young children and and you know, keep my career going and all the other bits and pieces? So it must have been huge additional stresses that you felt at just the most rotten time of your life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, completely and utterly. And people, when they take plans and policies out, you know, probably just think, oh, that will clear a mortgage, that will do this. But actually, it did buy me time to think about how I was going to move on, how was I going to look after the kids? As you say, how was I going to continue with work? Because I couldn't give up work. You know, I was in my late 30s. So, but it gives you time and the way to like get your heads together so you can plan to move on. Yeah, yeah, head space. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:So when you'd sort of looked at policies, had that been driven by your wife as well. She sounds like she was on it from the start. Had that been just because, you know, taking out a mortgage, you'd had to take out a policy.
SPEAKER_01:We didn't have to take out policy, but I suppose being in financial services helped to make sure that that was the one thing we did. And she'd suffered with health earlier in life. So that's why I'd arranged, you know, the private health cover because the cover she was getting before wasn't very good. Now, hindsight's a wonderful thing. Having enough money is a wonderful thing, but you choose to cut your cloth and you know, you take out what you can, and the cover for the mortgage was enough. In an ideal world, I'd have had cover for her to pay for childcare, but you know, it's not an ideal world, and I got through it with the cover we had, which again was useful to make sure that I could move on and the kids could move on.
SPEAKER_04:No, definitely. One thing you said, which was really interesting to me, and it's not something I'd particularly thought about, but it was actually, you know, when you have to fill in the forms and the guilt you kind of feel about that. Did you have an advisor to help you at that stage, or was that just something that you were faced with? Whereas I'm thinking about it, and as I said, it's not something I've really thought about, but another human being to kind of help you would definitely be appreciated, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean, I had friends and colleagues at work who I went to, but yeah, having an advisor who was much more hands-on certainly would have been, you know, very, very useful, particularly with pointing out things like the bereavement payment, you know, handling that kind of thing on your behalf rather than having to ring up to report the death of your wife. Yeah, yeah. I mean, probably one of the hardest phone calls I've ever made, I think, and irrational to feel guilt, but nonetheless, that's exactly how I felt.
SPEAKER_04:Well, no, and I'm sure everybody else making that phone call would be feeling very, very similar. As you say, one of the worst phone calls you'd have to make. It's kind of interesting because it's actually not something I'd particularly thought about. So I really appreciate you highlighting that point. And, you know, to me, as I say, it kind of is more evidence or more reason, I think, to have people around you who understand your financial situation, who can support you when the chips are really down.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, completely, completely. But the story kind of goes on, and one of the people who helped me back in 2003 was a branch manager, a local branch manager who she'd gone part-time because she decided that banking wasn't for her and she was studying for a HR degree. Right now, she'd had a critical illness and had a policy, and it paid out. Thankfully, she's absolutely fine. But what that did for her was enable her to go part-time to study for her HR degree. So, again, a different use for a policy. So she didn't use it to pay off her mortgage, she actually bought a BMW Cabriolet because she's mad into cars, and she funded her HR degree. She could change her career path completely. She went back into HR with the company we both work for, and now she's head of HR for a large construction company.
SPEAKER_04:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And this I know very well because about five years ago we got together. So I met my wife at Abbey National and I met my current partner, Mary, at Abbey National. So talking about keep it in the family.
SPEAKER_04:Abbey National, there's a brand I haven't thought about since I got my first mortgage many, many years ago.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Fascinating.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But yes, another example of why we take these policies out and different uses for you know what you can do with them.
SPEAKER_04:Definitely. So, how do you end up getting a relationship with Cavendishware? And when did that happen? And what was the genesis for that?
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Well, the relationship with Cavendishware started, let's see, about three years ago. Right. And I was chatting to a friend of mine at the rugby club, as you do, and he's a financial advisor. And I was talking about my pension with Santander and the fact that as I'm a widower, the situation of me passing away, the value of my pension would once I retired, would go. Right. So basically, once I was 55, if I started drawing my final salary pension scheme, if I passed away, the pension would die with me. So I wanted to consider transferring out. And my friend at the rugby club said, I don't do that, but I know someone who does.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:He introduced me to Cavendish Ware.
SPEAKER_04:Very good.
SPEAKER_01:So Greg Reed sorted my pension out. We transferred it out. And I was then officially a client of Cavendishware. Really impressed with the service, was retired for 18 months, bought myself a motorbike, living the dream, but got bored and had a conversation with Greg. And he said, you know, we've got vacancies for client support at Cavendishware. If you're interested, you can have an interview. I was really impressed with the service that I got both from Greg and the client support, keeping me in touch, updating me regularly, and thought, why not? Let's apply for the job. And as they say, the rest is history. I applied and got the job and I'm loving it.
SPEAKER_04:It's such an amazing story. And I guess because of your experience, the sort of amount of empathy I guess you can bring to the job is off the scales. It's really, really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:It's also quite funny from a point of view that when I started, I realized that I then knew Adrian from a previous life. Right. So 30 odd years ago, we worked for an insurer together.
SPEAKER_04:Blimey. So all roads lead back to Adrian. Yeah, indeed. Well, it's a thank you so much for joining us. It's been a really interesting and sobering discussion as well. But I think it really, for me, has sort of brought a number of things to life in terms of why actually getting some of these things in place early is important because you hope you never need to use them, but when you do need to use them, they can be life-changing at that moment.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Yeah, completely and utterly.
SPEAKER_04:Fabulous. Well, listen, thank you, as I say, for joining us and have a brilliant day.
SPEAKER_01:Cheers, you too.
SPEAKER_04:Super.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks for tuning in to Baseline, a monthly podcast series dedicated to topics that matter in wealth management. Be sure to check out our podcast archive and South Cloud. And until next time, have a marvelous week. You have been listening to Baseline from Cavendishware, an NMD Plus production.