In 2016, when Rhiannon started researching Special Needs Planning, she was met with many curious looks from the professionals she mentioned it to. This is the tale of how her personal experiences led to her founding the SENDA Alliance of UK Special Educational Needs and Disability Advisers, which is now a sought-after organisation by advisers for advice and support when dealing with vulnerable families. She tells us all about her journey.
When I spoke to experts, they showed empathy, but from a technical perspective, the fact that a child within the family had special needs made no difference to the advice provided. When I explained that I was trying to offer an alternative advice pathway, the questions were the same: what needs would such a pathway meet, why was I focusing on this niche, and where was the evidence that a different approach was needed? Whilst other financial advisers were curious, they told me they didn’t have ‘special needs families’ within their client banks.
This has changed. Now when I speak at conferences, events or seminars for financial advisers I’m constantly approached afterwards by advisers who have family members with special needs or clients with vulnerable dependants. They tell me stories about clients who have encountered challenges they feel might be met by specialist planning, usually around estate planning or savings. The matter of savings for young people with disabilities within child trust funds was again brought to the House of Lords in March; the Ministry of Justice estimates that up to 126,000 may be unable to access their accounts due to a lack of capacity.
In the last few years, the appetite for understanding SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) advice has grown; I’ve been asked to present for SOLLA, the CII, PFS Power and CISI. When I founded SENDA, the Alliance of Special Educational Needs and Disability Advisers, in 2024, I wasn’t sure whether anyone would attend the first meeting. Yet 60 solicitors, charity experts and financial advisers joined the Zoom call. All were interested in how to advise SEND families, collaborate with other professionals and ultimately, provide truly holistic advice to meet the unique financial challenges these families encounter. I wrote my book, Planning With Love, to help parents and carers, yet many advisers see it as a guidebook to help them advise SEND families.
The number of those with special needs in England is staggering. It shocked me to learn that 18% of all pupils in England have additional needs requiring specialist intervention at school—some 1.7 million children. My son is one of those. Tristan (15) has complex autism, is pre-verbal, has severe learning difficulties and will likely depend on me and my husband for the rest of his life. Yet I’d never factored that into our financial planning. I’d not considered whether what I wanted to pass down to my son would need to be protected. I certainly wouldn’t have appreciated that whether he could directly access his inheritance would depend on his mental capacity.
Nine years ago when I started my research I had no idea that Special Needs Planning was an established branch of financial planning abroad. There are hundreds of Chartered Special Needs Financial Consultants in the US, for example. Are the numbers or financial planning challenges different there? No, my studies tell me the same principles and challenges apply.
So, what are the unique challenges for special needs families? Without a doubt, the most significant area to address is estate planning. I’ve written and created to date seven courses for parents and carers, which I’ve presented via the National Network of Parent Carer Forums for years. It was no accident that I chose to write about wills and trusts for my first book – it is undoubtedly the number one financial planning challenge a family like mine faces. It is also the number one area of foreseeable harm I see in my practice.
I’ll use my example to explain:
I’ve always intended to split my estate in half on death, giving one half to my eldest son (who is neurotypical) and the other half to Tristan, who has autism.
I didn’t appreciate that:
- Even if I’d named him in my will, it’s unlikely he would be able to take receipt of the estate as he may lack mental capacity.
- Regardless of his capacity, any money in my son’s hands would make him far more vulnerable than he already is. He doesn’t speak, cannot understand questions, and certainly has no handle on body language. Money in his own hands would place him in danger.
- Whatever inheritance I left to him directly may jeopardise or disrupt the means-tested care that he is reliant upon, leaving him worse off, with no parents around to help him reinstate anything lost
For these reasons, the first action I suggest advisers take, once having identified that a member of their client’s family has additional needs, is to recommend a specialist solicitor to organise a will and trust. It is a straightforward, quick win for all; for the family, it addresses an area of considerable foreseeable harm, adding an immense amount of value, but it also leads to opportunities for the adviser. The adviser has a compelling reason to build relationships with professional connections and talk to other wider members of the family, including trustees, siblings and the grandparents of the vulnerable child.
Accepting that the trust protects the assets within the estate, the adviser may wish to turn their attention to the assets outside the scope of the will, such as pensions and death-in-service arrangements. There are many questions and opportunities to consider; can and should these be protected using stand-alone trusts? Has the likelihood of a lifetime of dependence on care been factored into pension provision? For our family, we are likely to embark on a ‘retirement for three’, meaning our son will be living with us in our retirement. If he isn’t, I’m sure we will be providing some care and support. The adviser should consider whether this impacts the age we retire, how much we will need in retirement and how our retirement pots are passed on to our son. Estate planning and life insurance go hand in hand. Think of the opportunities for the adviser to help a parent whose primary concern (I feel the same) is how they will provide for a vulnerable child when they are no longer here. If trusts are a SEND family’s best friend, surely life insurance comes a close second.
The upshot of this one area – and we could talk about many – is that the conventional planning you and I are used to does not cut it for families like mine. I have two sons. If I neglected my estate planning, carried out traditional planning or hadn’t optimised my estate planning for my eldest son, whilst unfortunate, it would not be catastrophic. For my son with autism, ‘normal’ or no planning at all would be. He could end up poorer, at greater risk of financial abuse and more reliant on others he may not even know. I, and every SEND family I know, would want to learn how to avoid this, and I genuinely believe that our profession is incredibly well-placed to help them.
About Rhiannon Gogh
Rhiannon is a trainer, presenter and award-winning chartered financial adviser, with over 20 years finance experience. Rhiannon specialises in advising the families of the vulnerable around the complexities of financial planning and she has written on financial issues for the Daily Mail and Financial Times. In 2024 Rhiannon founded the SENDA Alliance of UK Special Educational Needs and Disability Advisers, and the special needs pathway, which she has taught and presented on within the industry. Since her son, Tristan (now 14) was diagnosed with autism, she has helped thousands of SEND families plan successfully for the future.
Planning with Love: A Guide to Wills and Trusts for Parents of Children with Special Needs by Rhiannon Gogh (£15.99) is available from all good book retailers https://bit.ly/PlanningWithLoveBook www.planitfuture.co.uk Instagram: @planitfuturefinancial.
For any adviser wanting to learn more, Rhiannon has written three foundational Special Needs Planning courses, which are filmed and available on demand on the PFS Power website https://pfspower.org/ — no membership or sign-up is required. To find out more about SENDA, advisers can follow our page on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/company/sendauk.
