Legacy Planning and Preservation
Proper legacy planning and preservation is a cornerstone of any successful retirement plan and helps ensure that your wishes will be respected and your loved ones are taken care of. Legacy Planning is a multifaceted process that can be used for a variety of purposes, from helping to preserve your assets for future use to transferring your wealth.
From the conservation of your assets to the transfer of them, comprehensive legacy planning helps ensure that the management of your assets will be dictated by your wishes throughout your life and may provide a variety of benefits to you and your family. When they are executed and implemented properly, legacy plans may help reduce family disputes and court bureaucracy, provide effective disability planning, appropriately utilize exemptions to minimize estate taxes, and provide certain asset protection benefits to beneficiaries.
There are many strategies and tools that can be utilized to help safeguard your wealth and make sure it is effectively transferred. A variety of legal documents, such as wills, revocable living trusts, powers of attorney and advanced medical documents, are beneficial to the legacy planning process. Life insurance, both term and cash value, is another valuable tool to consider because it can be designed to serve several different functions. Life insurance policies can help address the financial harm caused by unexpected sudden deaths of parents of minor children, minimize the wealth destruction of families who may need advanced estate taxation avoidance, or possibly even work as alternative savings or wealth generation tools.
Additionally, long-term care insurance helps protect your assets from the devastating costs of long- term care expenses and ensures that you live in reasonable housing during the last stages of your life. These policies provide a diverse range of coverage depending on the style you choose, from more traditional policies to unique hybrid approaches that can generate enhanced long-term care benefits within certain types of life insurance or annuity* contracts.
Finally, Elder Law Planning can help limit the potentially devastating effects long-term disabilities may have on your quality of life, finances and legacy.
Legacy planning requires a coordinated and comprehensive approach that our firm is uniquely positioned to provide. We can help outfit your legacy plan with the insurance products it needs to protect you and your family.
*Variable and fixed indexed annuities are designed to be long-term investments and frequently involve substantial charges such as administrative fees, annual contract fees, mortality & risk expense charges and surrender charges. Early withdrawals may impact annuity cash values and death benefits. Taxes are payable upon withdrawal of funds. An additional 10% IRS penalty may apply to withdrawals prior to age 59 ½. Annuities are not guaranteed by FDIC or any other governmental agency and are not deposits or other obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by any bank or savings association.
With fixed annuities, both the money you invest and the interest paid out are guaranteed by the claims-paying ability of the insurer. Investments in variable annuities will fluctuate and values upon redemption may be less than the original amount invested. Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of a fixed and/or variable annuity carefully before investing.