What is a Fiduciary?
{2 minutes to read} What is a fiduciary? A fiduciary is a person that is entrusted with financial decisions, whether they be investments or other types of financial responsibilities. An executor of a will, the trustee(s) of a trust, or an investment advisor regarding your investments, are all examples of fiduciaries. At Strategic Wealth Advisor Network (SWAN), we are fiduciaries for our clients' investments, so when we manage a portfolio for a client, we are entrusted and responsible to act in the client's best interest. This differs from [...]
Use It or Lose It — The Current Tax Law
{3 minutes to read} Today, I want to talk about the concept of “use it or lose it,” and how it pertains to the current tax law for wealthy clients. At the time of this blog, there are two weeks to the next presidential election. During Donald Trump's time in office, he significantly increased the lifetime exemption amount to $11+ million for each of the husband and wife to gift or leave in their estate. That means that up to $22 million and change, indexed for inflation, can [...]
Employee Benefit Programs
{4 minutes to read} Many times the first level of employee benefit programs for business owners is to establish a pension or 401(k) plan. Many times, however, business owners want to do something additional for, let's say a key employee. There are areas of benefits that allow people who own businesses to provide a benefit to one executive, but not necessarily provide to another or for that matter to anyone else. As a business owner, if I had a key person for whom I wanted to do something [...]
Why Should You Give Us a Call?
{4 minutes to read} Today I want to talk about three subjects: What do we actually do? How can we help? Why should you consider working with us? What Do We Actually Do? What we do is very diverse. We go under the heading of providing financial planning, but many times people don't want to do a full financial plan. Many times people come to us and they want help with things like their pension, or 401(k), or managing their money in their retirement or brokerage accounts. Sometimes [...]
The Pain of Discipline Versus the Pain of Regret
Today, I want to discuss with everyone two concepts that overlap. One is called The Pain of Discipline versus the Pain of Regret. The other one is Risk versus Consequences. In 36 years of doing financial and insurance planning with many different types of people, I recognize that sometimes when we talk about risk with clients, they never think it's going to be them. In other words: I'm not going to die prematurely. I'll never need extended care or long-term care insurance. Disability insurance? I won’t need that. [...]