Lombard International Assurance, the Luxembourg based life assurance company, has launched a service that enables UK residents to gift assets to their children, while maintaining some control over when they receive them.

Lombard International Assurance, the  Luxembourg-based life assurance company, has launched a service that enables UK residents to gift assets to their children, while maintaining some control over when they receive them.

The Flexible Legacy Plan allows policyholders to set the age at which their beneficiaries can access the capital of their life policy and uses a potentially exempt transfer for inheritance tax purposes, Lombard said in a statement. Potentially exempt transfers are gifts which are exempt and excluded from inheritance tax so long as you live for seven years after  making the gift.

In contrast to planning with discounted gift trusts, the Flexible Legacy Plan excludes the investor as a beneficiary while allowing discretionary trustees control over access to policy benefits via a limited chargeable lifetime transfer.

Lombard said it was aimed at investors who may already have used any available nil rate band for inheritance tax purposes.

“Innovative life insurance structuring is a very flexible tool in wealth management. Many clients of our distribution partners have worked hard to accumulate wealth and want their children to benefit, while at the same time not conveying too much control at too young an age," said Robert MacIntyre, Lombard’s head of wealth structuring solutions.

"These wealthy people are looking to make a tax efficient gift to their loved ones, but with some strings attached. The Flexible Legacy Plan can be tailored to their complex needs and will, in Lombard’s view, prove very attractive to clients and their financial advisors when assessing future needs,” said MacIntyre.