Who saw bbc panarama britians hidden housing crisis

John_Pierpoint

dunstonh wrote: »

Part of a role of an adviser is to be clinical about such things. 1 in 5 men will die before retirement..

Is this simplistic?

How long you are likely to live depends on how old you already are.
Someone of 100 in "good health" still has a life expectancy of 2 years?

I have a nasty feeling this statistic is based on life expectancy at birth because when I tried to check the facts aged circa 40 [Changing jobs & pension schemes], I needed some sort of idea and came up with 1 in 25 but that might have been at age 60 and what turned out to be my "retirement/redundancy" age]?

Given that my father dropped dead at 50, and that I had a right to draw that pension at 50, but if left alone it would go up at a measly (;)) 8% a year; I left it alone until I was 65.

Can you point us at a table of life expectancies by age, as I once upon a time had to make the the decision about a great aunt "Which would happen first, would her trust fund go bust or would she die?" - she lived to be 98 and became an introduction to dementia and the welfare system:eek:;)

John_Pierpoint

MacMickster wrote: »

In the casino of life some suffer a tsunami of bad luck while others appear to surf on a tide of good luck.

Many of the latter, however, attribute their good fortune to their own skill and decision making. They are gamblers on a winning streak who feel invincible. They spend all of their winnings (because they will continue winning surely) rather than putting some aside in case their luck should ever change. As vivatifosi eloquently points out, even those who make good provision can still find themselves engulfed by a losing streak in the casino.

Certainly I feel sorry for the children of families who suddenly find themselves impoverished, but the state and society can't be responsible for the choices made by their parents. The children have had advantages over many of their peers, and in many cases will continue to benefit throughout their lives from the experiences of when their parents had wealth.

I think the lesson from impoverishment of their parents would be the attitude changing one - oh why do parents try to wrap their kids in cotton wool, to protect them from economic reality ?

OK kids - mum & dad don't have a money tree! This is called "opportunity cost" & budgetary control.

John_Pierpoint

Pobby wrote: »

Very sad. Humbling and made me grateful for my blessings. £230 a week for a room for 6 people? Illegal. Wish I had the cheerfulness of the poor lady with cancer. I don`t condemn any of those folks as I don`t have the full information. Yet I do believe that this is a reflection on the total mismanagement of housing spanning from the days that Thatch sold off council homes.

There has been a lot of time to address this but no. Many would take me to task but housing, in the lack of more worthwhile things, has become an investment tool and a bubble.

Despite the rent being paid, the landlord still managed to chuck them out? No wonder Cameron wants to put a ceiling on such tax expenditure. - "Trailer trash" here we come?

I am aware of two separate buildings near me about a mile apart, making 4 semi detached homes - in good condition they are worth something in the region of £250K each; perhaps more if they get the new proposed "permitted development rights" as they are in sacred "Green Belt". They are owned and used by the council to house largish "difficult" families.

Kennyboy66

dunstonh wrote: »

Part of a role of an adviser is to be clinical about such things. 1 in 5 men will die before retirement. I dont know what the latest stats are on CI but it was around 1 in 6 suffering a claimable event before retirement. Advisers should point out the risks and paint the picture of the consequences. There used to be a video that was near mandatory viewing by advisers at most firms called the widows tale. It had people in tears. However, it showed the cascade of events that could occur in the event of death (in that case). Advisers were and are still encouraged to disturb to quite a deep level. However, you now have so many people complaining about pressure that many have dropped the disturbance levels and have become almost apologetic for offering it rather than dig in deep and "disturb" the people as they should.

Simply not true - or at the very least a highly questionable statistic.

The adult mortality rate for men between the ages of 15 and 60 is 9.3 per cent (and falling).

roswell

The general problem with life expectanciy is you have to remain living.

E.g more of us are living longer ( no mention of how many arent reaching the point to be measured as living longer)

The one part of life and I agree with other posters is insurance, it does not have to be a product you can self insure by paying an extra £50 a month off the mortgage / saving an extra £50 a month against a car payment etc etc.

I do believe in commercial products for house insurance and car insurance , life insurance but not for payment insurance ill cover that myself thanks.

dunstonh

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Simply not true - or at the very least a highly questionable statistic.

The adult mortality rate for men between the ages of 15 and 60 is 9.3 per cent (and falling).

If you start lopping years off at either end then you will get different figures.

Kennyboy66

dunstonh wrote: »

If you start lopping years off at either end then you will get different figures.

I used that figure to demonstrate how absurd the 1 in 5 claim is - and is typical of the awful use of statistics by the financial services industry - out of date and irrelevant.

The 1 in 5 statistic is out of date by about 25 years, and is about as useful as life tables from 1980 but hardly surprising that financial advisers still quote it. The rate of premature death has fallen by 20% over the last decade alone.

When they are trying to terrify their clients to buy a commission heavy product, they should be quoting the mortality rate for the age of their customer. If he is 28, then the relevant statistic would be the mortality from 28 - 65 (or whatever retirement age).

Naturally they will also ignore the fact that mortality rates are hugely higher for say Scottish men (50% higher) than men from the East of England or that manual social class workers are almost twice as likely to die between 25-65 as those in managerial occupations.

dawyldthing

what i don't get is there are thousands of derelict houses, old office buildings, warehouses and flats that have gone unused for many many years. Wouldn't it be better to transform them into liveable spaces, train people up that haven't got jobs to maintain them and reuse the money created into transforming more of them so that we have more space for people to live. Often you hear that there aren't the houses for the amount of people, but if all these were transformed i'm sure it would help the situation greatly and a lot more people could be in a better place than being on the street in this weather

dunstonh

I used that figure to demonstrate how absurd the 1 in 5 claim is - and is typical of the awful use of statistics by the financial services industry - out of date and irrelevant.

It may well be out of date. Its been the best part of a decade since I last looked up any stats or had reason to. However, it is certainly not irrelevant. Just ask that woman on the programme who got cancer and had no insurance. Would the stats matter to her? Do you think Widows are concerned about the odds of their husband not making retirement? The fact is it happens and can happen and a choice not to cover yourself for that sort of event is a risk.

Kennyboy66

dunstonh wrote: »

It may well be out of date. Its been the best part of a decade since I last looked up any stats or had reason to. However, it is certainly not irrelevant. Just ask that woman on the programme who got cancer and had no insurance. Would the stats matter to her? Do you think Widows are concerned about the odds of their husband not making retirement? The fact is it happens and can happen and a choice not to cover yourself for that sort of event is a risk.

If you are 28 in my example, the mortality of all ages between 0 and 28 is completely irrelevant.

I'm all for affordable insurance for catastrophic events, but people should understand what the real risk is. The risk of a 35 year old male dying within a year is roughly 14 in 10,000.

Guess what the second likeliest cause of death is (after accidents) ?

Suicide - where there would be no payout anyway.