Over the past few years we have observed a trend towards increasingly horizontal inheritance planning. First and foremost, the partners want to make each other their beneficiaries, preferably in a tax-friendly way. This involves deferring the inheritance of the children. This trend might continue because of the current economic climate.

But avoiding inheritance duty is only one of the numerous matters that need to be addressed in good inheritance planning. An awful lot of other factors typically also play a role, such as retaining control over assets (for as long as possible), pushing up the return on assets,

limiting the taxation of capital and the income obtained from it, protecting assets against insolvency of a financial institution and - last but not least - getting an acceptable cost structure for the chosen solution.

Return is one thing, risk is something else. As part of inheritance planning, it may be advisable to minimise the risk factor and to go for absolute security. We should add that it is extremely important to stick to the legal and fiscal rules. Given the multitude of products now on the market, it's not easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.