Integrated Wealth Management Experience
Integrated wealth management experiences are our way to help clients have the type of retirement planning assistance that is provided in a “family office.” If you don’t know what this term means or who it applies to, we’re going to cover that in great detail before explaining the concept of integrated wealth management to you.
Note: Click here to listen to the podcast that this article was based on using Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
What is a “Family Office?”
A “family office” caters to what can be considered ultra-high net worth. You have enough assets that you require an entire team to help manage your assets. These offices will help you with:
- Family businesses
- Taking care of budgets
- Paying bills
- Managing cash flow, credit cards, real estate
Individuals in a family office have assets of $50+ million. Anyone who falls into this category can be their “own client,” meaning that the entire team works for you to manage your wealth. Extensive assistance is offered, including tax and estate planning, to the degree that 99% of people will never require. You’ll also work with attorneys and CPAs.
All these employees work for you, they’re registered with the SEC, and they assist with managing your “family.” If a person has this high of a net worth, they may need to have a chief financial officer (CFO) who will handle hiring or working with certain experts to meet their family’s needs.
Often, with a family office, they have a CPA working with them full-time.
The family office works solely for the family and will handle all their financial and wealth management needs. If a lawyer needs to be hired to work on estate plans, that’s all handled for you behind the scenes.
Integrated Wealth Management Experience
In our office, our average client doesn’t have $100 – $200 million or a billion dollars. We can’t create a family office for these individuals, but we wanted to create a system that offered the same experience as a family office for all our clients.
What we devised is known as our integrated wealth management experience.
What Does an Integrated Wealth Management Experience Look Like?
Instead of working with one individual, we work with many and take on the role similar to a “CFO.” We look at the person’s entire financial picture and beyond to help you secure your retirement. We partner with multiple professionals on a range of services, in addition to in-house wealth management.
For simplicity, we’ll break this down into a few of our in-house and partnered services.
In-House Wealth Management
In-house, we specialize in wealth management. We are financial advisors, and fiduciaries- which means we’re required to put your best interests first. The majority of our clients are people close to or retirement, and we’re big on the retirement-focused financial plan.
In a few words, the retirement-focused financial plan:
- Analyzes where you are today
- Outlines retirement goals
- Identifies changes that need to be made to reach your goals
Reaching your financial goals will often mean investing in some sort of return. We may invest in the market, bonds, annuities, or a wide range of other financial vehicles. We invest for a return that is comfortable for the client and is based on individual risk tolerance.
Next, we offer tax planning. Some of the tax planning is in-house and some of it is done by working with outside experts. We have checks and balances in place to understand:
- What your taxes look like today
- What strategies we can implement before the end of the year to lower the tax burden
- What to do to save you money next year
We can also handle the tax return for you, and we have partnered with CPAs to lead this process. CPAs will also provide a stamp of approval for all the tax planning strategies that we prepare to ensure that everything moves along smoothly.
Our team helps clients understand where their income is coming from and ensures that their retirement-focused financial plan is operating to reach their goals.
Estate Planning
Estate planning is a crucial part of retirement planning that folks really struggle to talk and think about. However, we incorporate this planning into the experience because it provides you with peace of mind that your estate matters are all handled in a legal manner.
Without an up-to-date estate plan, it can be difficult for you to leave assets in your desired way for heirs and beneficiaries. If you’ve had a major life change since you’ve created or looked at your estate plan, it is a good idea to have your estate plan professionally reviewed and updated.
For our clients, we have a system in place for the state they live in to create a:
- Trust
- Will
- Power of Attorney
- Healthcare Power of Attorney
- HIPAA form
We believe this aspect of your retirement-focused financial plan is urgent, and strongly encourage our clients to review and update these documents on a regular basis.
Social Security
We work with a Social Security consultant, so our clients have an expert look at avoiding mistakes when filing for Social Security. Some clients have an easy process for Social Security, and we can help them apply for their benefits. However, other clients do not have as easy of a time.
Our consultant is on retainer and will help consider:
- Complex decisions
- Divorce
- Optimizing for certain forms of income
- Survivorship
She assists us when running the numbers for Social Security to help you make the best decision on when to take your benefits and how to reach your financial goals.
Insurances
Insurance includes many different options, but one of the major ones is health insurance. When you retire, you’re responsible for your own health insurance, which will be Medicare.
Medicare can be overwhelming when it comes to options, plans, and thresholds. We work with our clients and partners to help them find the best Medicare options for their health scenario and budget. We may be able to structure things to avoid IRMAA surcharges on Medicare, too.
Additionally, we help clients during open enrollment to find plans that may be more affordable or a better overall option for them.
Long-term Care Planning
Speaking of healthcare planning, we also dive into long-term care planning. Hopefully, you’ll never need this level of care, but you just never know what the future will hold for you. We recently had a podcast on long-term care planning.
We’ll analyze your long-term care options and even help you secure the insurance you need to pay for a nursing home or assisted living facility.
Life Insurance
We’ll work through the question of life insurance and how to structure it for you and your family.
These are just some of the insurance options that we can use to help build our clients retirement-focused financial plan. As we’ve outlined, we do our best to mimic the “family office” so that it works in your best interests.
What Getting Started with Our Integrated Wealth Management Experience Looks Like
If you call us to discuss your options, we already have:
- Ongoing, up-to-date research to aid in building plan for your goals
- Multiple estate planning methods in place
- Many in-house Insurance and Wealth Management strategy options
We’re involved the entire time, working to have all your questions answered. We will do the research with the estate planner or Social Security expert to have your questions answered.
Since we work with the outside experts, you bypass the extra step to make sure your financial, tax, and estate planning professionals are all on the same page when it comes to your retirement-focused financial plan. We’re very much involved with every aspect of your plan to help you make sound financial decisions.
Want to learn more about our Integrated Wealth Management Experience? Schedule a free call with us today.