The importance of personal responsibility.
By Colin Barrett, Group Director at Ancojada Group
This week saw the much-predicted announcement in parliament that all legal Covid-19 restrictions are to be withdrawn in England. This move will likely be replicated soon in part or in full throughout the rest of the UK.
In his speech Boris Johnson announce a shift in approach to Covid-19 from enforced restrictions to “personal responsibility”.
But what does it mean to take personal responsibility when it comes to Covid? Well for me…I have long hoped that one positive outcome that might emerge from the dreadful couple of years that we have just gone through, is that we all start to be more considerate towards one another. What do I mean by that? Well, for one thing, my wife Jan and I have built a pretty large collection of reusable face masks over the course of the pandemic, and I don’t see them being consigned to the waste bin in the foreseeable future.
My own “personal responsibility” plan is that if I am suffering any symptoms at all in the future, even those of a mild cold, I will be wearing a face mask in public to protect those around me from catching any illness from me. In fact, I don’t think it would take too much for me to decide to “self-isolate” for a couple of days until my symptoms disappear. You see, if there is one thing above all else that I hope we have learned through all the suffering of the last couple of years, it is that our own actions (or inactions) can have serious consequences for those around us. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one who is responsible for bringing illness and suffering of any sort to anybody else, would you?
Of course, personal responsibility is a part of all our lives, at all times, not just during a global pandemic. Our greatest responsibility perhaps is to our loved ones, our family and friends, those who are closest to us. Perhaps it has something to do with a heightened sense of our own mortality, but during the pandemic the numbers of people arranging a Will soared to previously unseen heights, helping to protect the legacy of millions more people across the UK than had ever been seen before.
However, despite these new levels of engagement with estate planning, the percentage of people who currently have no valid Will is still shockingly high at a whopping 56%. Yes, you read that right….it means that over half of the people reading this article right now probably don’t have a valid Will.
Why is this percentage so high? It’s a hard question to fathom really. It could be that some people wrongly believe that they have a valid Will? There are several reasons why a Will might become invalid….do you know them all? If you have made a Will in the past, are you sure it is still valid and relevant today? Perhaps for some the reason for inaction is simply because it all seems so difficult to sort out? Well, I can assure you with absolute confidence that if you get the right assistance it can be very quick and easy to get a Will in place and protect the inheritance of those you love. Maybe you are just put off by the potential cost of advice? But do you actually know what the cost will be? It might be a lot less expensive than you think.
Whatever our past reasons might have been for either not making a Will or reviewing an existing one, perhaps now with a renewed sense of personal responsibility uppermost in our minds, the timing may be right to take a closer look at estate planning and put a plan in place to protect our legacy to our loved ones.
For more information, or to arrange an appointment to discuss a Will, visit www.ancojadawills.com. If you have a Will already and you want to check it is still valid, current and working as effectively you would like it to be, visit www.checkyourwill.com for a FREE assessment.
Ancojada Limited is not authorised or regulated to provide financial advice.
All financial advice is provided by other regulated businesses.
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