Proper estate planning better supports the current and future financial possibilities for you and your family, allows you to transfer your wealth according to your wishes, and can help reduce unnecessary taxes and expenses.
We are committed to collaborating with you and your family to help determine your long-term personal financial goals and plan accordingly. In addition, we will help you structure your estate assets to minimize tax liabilities and maximize value to future generations. Our professional team will work with any additional advisors you may have, such as an attorney, accountant or investment professional, to develop and implement a plan of action. All of this planning will be coordinated with your insurance contracts in order to provide a sound, workable plan. Periodically, we will review your plan with you in order to assess our progress in helping you accomplish your long-term objectives.
Ultimately, our goal is to assure that you and your family have taken prudent steps in an effort to reduce your tax liabilities and to create the most effective means to help finance any future tax liabilities.
At a time when social responsibility has taken on increasing importance, charitable planning offers a strategic way for you to connect to causes that you and your family feel passionate about. Whether your aim is to develop a philanthropic legacy for your family, create ongoing opportunities to transfer family assets to public and/or private charities or to simply support your community. These charities often include family foundations that are managed by family members, in which the family retains control over the gifted assets and access to income generated by these assets. Often, charitable planning provides a balance to estate and life insurance plans, while taking on personal meaning for you and your family. We offer creative solutions aimed at helping you achieve your personal or familial philanthropic goals without interrupting your family’s long-term financial possibilities.
An important component to any estate plan is gifting, which allows you to reduce the size of your taxable estate by strategically transferring the wealth you have worked so hard to create for your family members.
Gifting enables you to take advantage of the substantial tax advantages available through the use of lifetime gifts. Thoughtful use of these gifts through the use of planning vehicles such as trusts, and life insurance can help maximize the value created for your heirs. Working with your accountant or attorney, we can help you determine a gifting strategy that is consistent with your planning objectives.
Given the current competitive business environment, we believe that an executive benefits program is essential in recruiting top tier talent who will contribute to your company’s growth and profitability. A well-designed and implemented executive benefits program provides incentives that help attract new executives and retain talent over time.
We design, implement, and administer executive benefit plans that enable you to selectively reward key employees and top executives of your business. Our cost-efficient executive benefit plans supplement qualified retirement and group insurance plans that may be restrictive in nature. Our programs are designed to help meet the personal needs and goals of executives within the context of the overall corporate financial goals of your business.
Employee stock options and programs like 401(k) plans are a good start, but they may not meet the financial expectations of the most talented executives. Our belief is that executive employees want to enjoy a rewarding retirement, by establishing sound financial options early on. We consistently strive to be chosen as trusted corporate advisors for carefully evaluating costs and benefits, while continuously exploring additional possibilities for better programs to help executives achieve their financial goals.
Life insurance has many unique characteristics that may make it an appropriate solution for a variety of challenges, beyond those that arise at the death of the insured(s). In addition to death benefit protection, life insurance can offer:
Family Protection: Provides a source of cash for surviving family members to utilize for living expenses.
College Funding: Provides a funding source for college education of children or grandchildren.
Debt Protection: Generates cash to pay off an existing mortgage or other personal debt.
Wealth Creation: Provides funds to leave as an inheritance or to equalize inheritances among family members.
Estate Tax Liquidity: Creates liquidity to pay estate taxes rather than requiring liquidation of existing estate assets.
Gifting Leverage: Leverages the use of the annual gift tax exclusion, the lifetime exemption, and/or Generation Skipping Transfer Tax exemption.
Key Employee: Provides funds to aid in the search for a replacement in the event of a key employee’s death.
Executive Recruitment and Retention: Used in a variety of nonqualified benefit programs to help attract and retain key employees.
Business Continuation: Provides funds to aid in the continuation of business in the event of an owner’s death or disability.
Succession Planning: Provides liquidity to purchase the ownership interest of a deceased owner.
Debt Protection: Creates a pool of money that can be used to pay off borrowed money.
Wealth Replacement: Used with many charitable gifting programs to replace, for heirs, the value of estate assets that were gifted to charity.
Gift Creation: Used to create a significant donation to charity at death or during life.
Gift Leverage: Used to maximize the eventual charitable donation at the death of the insured.
Ultimately, all business owners must decide what capacity they want their business to continue, what their own long-term individual contributions will be, the best way to ensure the ongoing care of their clients, and the most advantageous direction and strategy to execute those objectives. If your business has not yet developed or communicated a plan for business continuation in the event of an unexpected incident or catastrophe (e.g., the unexpected death or disability of an owner or key decision-maker, or a natural disaster), it could be exposed to potential devastation.
While financial considerations are often the primary focus, unclear philosophical and emotional considerations also play a vital role in the approach and design of a succession plan. We will work closely with you and your professional advisors to identify areas of concern and opportunity and provide solutions that help to bring certainty to the future of your business. We design plans intended to help your reputation—with your business identity within your community, among your customers, and within your industry—remain intact in the event of a significant change.
Our goal is to help advisors and their clients maximize their estate and charitable planning through the analysis, design, implementation and ongoing management of private placement insurance products.
Private placement insurance products offer accredited investors* access to both investment alternatives and customized product designs that are often difficult or impossible to obtain in traditional or registered products. They provide a broad range of non-correlated asset choices as well as similar registered investment options when compared to traditional registered variable products. Private placement products provide flexibility in both policy charges and structure. They are frequently used as a tool to address a multitude of financial, charitable, estate and income tax planning objectives.
* An accredited investor is either an individual with gross income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse or partner exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year.
Private Placement Life Insurance is an unregistered securities product and is not subject to the same regulatory requirements as registered variable products. As such, Private Placement Life Insurance (or Annuities) should only be presented to accredited investors or qualified purchasers as described by the Securities Act of 1933.
Income and asset protection are important components of a sound retirement strategy. Effective disability and long-term care planning, both pre- and post- retirement, can be a critical part of a prudent financial plan, helping ensure stability, growth, and protection of income and assets for the long term.
A disability could be devastating to the income and accumulation goals of executives on your team. As an employer, you want to provide adequate coverage to key executives on a cost-effective basis. Understanding the risk, assessing the income protection needs of your key employees, and designing effective solutions that benefit both the employer and the employees can make a significant difference.
Employers should carefully weigh their choices and balance cost and administration with the need for adequate coverage. There are many factors to consider, and we will help better prepare you by helping you find the right protection for you and your executives.
Long-term care is usually defined as a chronic condition for which an individual requires assistance with his or her usual activities of daily living (ADLs). ADLs are commonly defined as eating, dressing, bathing, toileting, maintaining continence, and transferring from bed to chair. When an individual needs physical assistance or verbal reminders to perform his or her ADLs, they are generally classified as needing long-term care, whether they need the assistance occasionally or full-time.
Diagnostic, therapeutic, preventive, and rehabilitative services all have their place in a comprehensive long-term care program. The primary focus of long-term care however, is on the personal care and support that will preserve an individual’s lifestyle, daily independence, and dignity.
It can be difficult to plan for long-term care needs because there are multiple factors influencing the decision-making process, including:
The financial implications of a disability, chronic disease, or other debilitating condition are often underestimated. Along with health care costs in general, these costs are expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. As most health insurance will not pay for the majority of costs associated with an extended period of illness or injury, long-term care insurance offers a solution with tax-free benefits that are aimed at protecting valuable assets that would otherwise be severely reduced or lost entirely.