“A course of action for helping affluent families manage, pursue, preserve and pass on wealth.”

The Discovery Conversation

The entire Financial Planning process begins with a conversation and an analysis of your current financial situation. Here we will review your important financial documents and give you an opportunity to share with us your short and long-term objectives. This will give us the necessary background information to enable us to come up with specific and meaningful recommendations to help you develop a strategy to pursue your goals.

The Investment Strategy Solution

The first step in this multi-part process is for us to review your current investments and to help you develop an appropriate and personal Investment Policy Statement (IPS), which will give you a more well-defined approach to investment management. We use in-depth research tools such as Morningstar^® and Standard and Poor's^®, as well as additional resources, to analyze your current investment strategy to help us identify your particular strengths and weaknesses. Then we employ important asset allocation techniques using Modern Portfolio Theory and sophisticated investment algorithms to develop your specific investment platform.

Your Retirement Income Formula

One of the more critical elements of Retirement Planning is to develop a distribution and income strategy. Again, we use technology, in particular a technique known as “Monte Carlos Analysis,” to help us project your income needs and to identify any shortcomings in your retirement and savings plan. This is an interactive process that will allow you to see exactly how you currently stack up toward your retirement income goals and the solutions you will need to consider to close any gaps that may exist. We will consider all of your income sources, including Social Security, pensions and expected inheritances, as well as your current nest-egg and future savings commitments, to help devise a workable income distribution strategy.

Your Estate Planning Analysis

We are not attorneys and cannot draft legal documents, but we can help you review them to make certain that they are in synch with your current needs and wishes. One of the important services we provide is to help you routinely review all the elements that comprise an “Estate Plan.” Typically your Estate Plan documents are comprised of wills, trusts and beneficiary arrangements for your retirement plans and insurance policies. In addition, if we determine that your heirs may be faced with an Estate Tax on the disposition of your assets, we will also discuss and recommend specific liquidity solutions to address that concern as well.

Tax-Diversification Discussion

One of the most important factors that we consider when making recommendations is the tax-efficiency of your investment portfolio. We are understandably concerned about the possibility of future increases in tax rates and the effect that higher taxes will have, especially during the retirement income distribution phase of the financial planning process. We will look at the viability of using such strategies as Roth IRA's or Roth IRA conversions for qualified investors, as well as a number of other effective techniques that are designed to help you minimize the long-term consequences of higher taxes.

Risk Management Blueprint

Often overlooked, and misunderstood, we need to explore the current and future need for insurance, and in particular, those insurance products that are specifically designed for you as you prepare to enter your retirement years. This will include a comprehensive analysis of the potential costs of convalescent care and how long-term care insurance can offset a majority of those expenses. We will also do a “needs analysis” to determine whether or not life insurance still makes sense for you, and, if so, the most efficient form of insurance to own.

The Legacy Planning Advantage

What would you like your legacy to be? This step, one of the very last that we consider, is designed to help you determine just how to manage your assets in a way that is consistent with your ultimate family and charitable goals. We will review, in depth, all of the choices that you have in the ultimate disposition of your estate and how to structure and title your assets to help accommodate those wishes.

Your Complete Financial Assessment

Finally, we need to meet on a periodic basis to make certain that you are still on track to accomplish your overall objectives. We will monitor your investments on a regular basis and recommend changes when they are warranted by either modifications in the market climate or in your particular needs. One of the most important reasons to meet regularly is to assess lifestyle changes (retirement, job change, grandchildren, etc.) and how they can impact a financial plan. This way we can make any necessary adjustments to keep you on track.