Our Approach

Legacy Planning is a more holistic approach to estate planning. We help clients preserve their financial wealth and their legacy, including their life stories and family heirlooms, for future generations. Our non-traditional planning methods include special provisions and protections in Living Trusts, Wills (simple & complex), Powers of Attorney, Living Wills, Irrevocable Trusts, Family Limited Partnerships, and Charitable Gifting Strategies. This planning also includes minimizing estate taxes, avoiding the expense and nightmare of probate, protecting against remarriage after death of the 1st spouse, and protecting beneficiaries from a possible future divorce.

The best things in life aren’t things. Such a simple statement, but it holds so much meaning and intent. We know there is value in our financial assets, but more importantly, there is even greater value in our family treasures like family history, morals, beliefs and heirlooms. These treasured assets are the ones that are most often overlooked in traditional estate planning.

Kris Miller, will review the requirements for Holistic Legacy Planning including Protection of Assests from market loss, Probate and Catastrophic illness/Long-Term Care Medicaid eligibility, including how assets and income are treated, how penalty periods are calculated, and how to plan for Long Term Care in the future. Learn how you can safeguard your retirement savings including IRA’s and 401 (k)s with the Secure Money Plan- a strategy that protects your money while providing you with guaranteed income for life!

See your savings grow immediately
$100,000 becomes $110,000
$500,000 becomes $550,000

These plans may reduce or eliminate taxes on Social Security

The workshop will include how clients can use beneficiary designations to their benefit as well as how they can trigger complications. For example, what happens if a minor is named as a beneficiary for an IRA? She will also review the tax implications for inherited retirement plans.

When savings are exhausted, many families count on Medicaid to pay for nursing home expenses, but don’t realize they may have done something to become ineligible.

1.     Designate who will manage your affairs if you become disabled and when you pass away.

2.     Plan for Medicaid and its impact on your estate if you must go into a nursing home.

3.     Avoid probate, during your lifetime and when you pass away.

4.     Protect children from a prior marriage if you pass away first.

5.     Protect assets inherited by your heirs from lawsuits, divorces and other claims.

14 MOST COMMON REASONS TO DO ESTATE PLANNING

1.     Designate who will manage your affairs if you become disabled and when you pass away.

2.     Plan for Medicaid and its impact on your estate if you must go into a nursing home.

3.     Avoid guardianship/conservatorship, during your lifetime and probate when you pass away.

4.     Protect children from a prior marriage if you pass away first.

5.     Protect assets inherited by your heirs from lawsuits, divorces and other claims.

6.     Impose discipline upon children (and/or grandchildren) who may not be capable or experienced in managing money.

7.     Provide for special needs children and grandchildren.

8.     Insure that a specific portion of your estate actually gets to grandchildren, charities, etc.

9.     Protect a portion of your estate if you pass away first and your surviving spouse remarries.

10. Address different needs of different children.

11. Prevent or discourage challenges to your estate plan.

12. Reward/encourage heirs who make smart life decisions, and prevent the depletion of your estate by those who do not make smart choices.

13. Assure an education for children/grandchildren, despite what they (or their parents) dream of doing with the inheritance.

14. “Brady-Bunch” family estate planning: assure the step-parent doesn’t spend your children’s inheritance and/or provide for a spouse by sacrificing the intended legacy for children of a prior marriage.

Retain you gains in good years with an automatic lock-inmechanisim.  Block out bad years and “Retain” all previous gains automatically

10% cash bonus to roll over accounts

Tax derfered fowth and triple compounding

Multi-generational IRA for your loved ones!

Stop gambling with your money in the market

As recent history has shown us, putting all of your retirement assets in one basket can be a tragic mistake.

With your retirement lifestyle riding on one primary investment vehicle, a sudden downward turn in the market can have devastating consequences.

If you were to experience such a loss to your primary retirement accounts, how could your future be affected? Would you have to:

• Continue working, just to earn enough to retire?
• Stop dining out, playing golf or gardening because it was no longer affordable?
• Aggresively risk the money you have left by trying to recover from losses?
• Settle for less of a retirement than you had planned?

Retirement Preparation
If you are retired or on the verge of retirement, it’s important for you to consider how your income and assets could be impacted by potential loss. Though some risk may be necessary to achieve given financial objectives, many retirees choose to diversify their money into multiple strategies so that no single investment can jeopardize their retirement lifestyle. There are many “Green Money” alternatives to consider in lieu of risky investments (or “Red Money” accounts) when deciding where to put your money. Finding the appropriate combination for your particular circumstances can be a daunting challenge. How much “Red Money” (risk) versus “Green Money” (protection) should you be considering?

The Rule of 100 is a very simple guideline to help you assess the appropriate level of risk you should be assuming with your retirement assets.

Simply subtract your age from 100.

The remaining figure represents the percentage that you could generally afford to have at risk in products that allow for loss of your hard earned assets. Example: A 70 year-old male would have no more than 30% of his money at risk (100-70=30). Hence, in this example, 30% “Red Money” (risk) and 70% “Green Money” (protection).

Protected “Green Money” Accounts
This type of product is one in which your principal is protected from loss as long as you follow the guidelines and do not break the rules of the contract. Examples of “Green Money” (protected) products include:

• Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
• Money Market Accounts
• Savings Accounts
• Savings Bonds
• Fixed Annuities
• Fixed Index Annuities

All of these products provide protection of principal. That’s the good news. The bad news is that with the exception of a Fixed Indexed Annuity, the rates of return (interest rates) are generally low.

Competitive Returns
Fixed Indexed Annuities (FIAs) can provide potentially higher rates of return than other traditional fixed interest products because their interest rates are tied in part to the performance of a stock market based index, such as S&P 500 or the Dow Jones, to name a few. FIAs allow you to not only participate in the positive movements of a stock market index, but they also allow full protection of principal. Additionally, FIAs offer one other huge benefit to other financial products-once interest is credited to the policy, it can never be taken away, regardless of how the index does in the future.

To further make this point, let’s use a hypothetical example: let’s say that you earned 7% in the first year, 6% in the second year and 9% in the third year, but that the market had a major downward move in the fourth year. With an FIA, you would keep all of your earnings of the first 3 years and earn 0% (but not go backwards) in the fourth year.