Asset Management and Protection
Asset Management and Protection is the entire cycle of building wealth through strategies like acquiring, maintaining, and trading investments of various kinds to potentially increase their value over time. Our holistic approach to management includes well-defined objectives for each asset.
Asset protection embodies strategies created to help neutralize the effects of events that may be catastrophic to your financial situation. Many times, the actual events cannot be prevented, but in more instances, the negative consequences can be significantly reduced or eliminated. Some strategies employed to accomplish asset protection are the following:
- the procurement of insurances specific to the risks being covered,
- the transfer of asset ownership to trusts, and
- proper diversification within investment portfolios.
Simply put, unless each potential risk, which has a reasonable possibility of occurring, is covered, asset protection may be limited to hopes, prayers, or wishes.
Take some time to consider the risk factors that might sabotage your Life Goals, Hopes and Dreams.
Neutralizing Risk
You can suffer financial loss through many avenues including, others’ misdeeds, negligence resulting in you getting sued, health issues suffered by you or your dependents, the passing of an income-provider, and severe investment losses. Many times, the actual events cannot be prevented, but in virtually all instances the negative consequences could have been significantly reduced or eliminated. Some asset protection strategies are procuring insurances specific to the risks being covered, transferring asset ownership to trusts, and proper diversification within investment portfolios.
With 30+ years of experience, DFS handles a wide array of insurance products such as life, disability, and long-term care, and also manages portfolios with regards to the client’s risk tolerances and the timelines for withdrawals from portfolios.
3 Characteristics of The Perfect Investment
First
It would be safe.
Second
It would be liquid.
Third
It would provide good returns.
No investment has all 3, and every product has a deficiency. We work to select financial instrument according to the features each client prioritizes and the deficiencies they can live with. One goal of Financial Planning is to find the perfect investment for each time period in your life. Our privilege is to put our expertise to work in strategically aligning the right tools within your Financial Plan to achieve your Life’s Goals, Hopes and Dreams.
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Annuities
Everything is a tool. Choose the right one.
A hammer isn’t good or bad. It’s very good at doing hitting a nail into a plank, what it was designed for, but it’s not so good at spreading spackle for instance. For that you’d need a different tool.
With widespread misinformation circulating around annuities, they are often dismissed without consideration. There are even financial advisors who dismiss annuities outright. My position is that annuities can be an important part of a financial plan, but a number of planning errors can be made by misusing annuities—not because they are bad products but because a financial advisor may have not been sufficiently knowledgeable or was not looking out for the client’s best interest (i.e., was not acting in a fiduciary capacity).
Variable Annuities
While we have met plenty of people with variable annuities, we almost never meet someone who knows how their variable annuity works! Variable Annuities are complicated financial instruments, but can be valuable options in some Financial Plans. To get the greatest benefit from your Variable Annuity you must align your plan features with your growth/income options that meet your financial goals and objectives.
Pink and Blue
Pink and Blue Money is a broad description of how men and women generally tend to handle their financial affairs based on several factors: cultural patterns, differences in financial risk due to life expectancy, view of risk, financial experience and the value they identify with money. Women and men share similar financial objectives, but often have differences in their underlying perspectives about money which affect their financial decisions.
Comparing the Pink and Blue Money approaches empowers you to identify which characteristics of each approach resonate with you and consider how you may be able to benefit from adopting elements of each in handling your finances. Understand the benefits (and drawbacks) of each of the approaches. You may have a financial “blind spot” that this exercise helps you identify. You may also identify opportunities to use approaches from the “other color” that you haven’t considered.
Does My Advisor Get Me?
What is it you expect from your Financial Advisor (even if YOU are your financial advisor)? How do you know when they (or you) are doing a good job?
