Solutions
Solutions Designed to Protect Your Future
At The Wealth Defender, we believe every person deserves a clear, confident path to retirement. That’s why our solutions are built around education, transparency, and long-term security. Whether you are preparing for retirement, already retired, or reassessing your financial direction, our goal is to help you make informed decisions that protect what matters most.
We provide strategies that simplify the complex and bring clarity to your retirement planning. From optimizing federal benefits and developing income strategies to selecting the right annuity or insurance solution, our approach is tailored to your unique goals and financial situation. No pressure. No guesswork. Just straightforward guidance from a professional who understands the challenges and opportunities of today’s retirement landscape.
Explore the solutions below to learn how we can help you create a stronger, more secure financial future.
Asset Protection
You’ve got plans — a lot of them. Wouldn’t it be more fun to focus on your dreams than constantly worry about what the market’s doing?
Diversifying your retirement assets among a variety of vehicles — including a mix of both insurance products and investments, depending on what is appropriate for your situation — may offer you the best chance of meeting your retirement income goals.
Anyone who invests in the market should understand it involves the potential risk of principal. So, to provide some security not found in the stock market, you may want to include some insurance products in your financial strategy. These products, such as annuities, can provide supplemental income throughout retirement and protect your money from declines due to stock market losses.
Annuities
A recent study found that 67 percent of Americans indicated they would be willing to give up smaller pay increases in exchange for steady and reliable income in retirement. In the same study, 78 percent said the disappearance of pensions has made it harder to achieve the American dream.
With pension offerings on the decline, you may want to consider a fixed income component to your financial strategy. In short, adding an annuity may be an opportunity to help ensure a portion of your retirement income will be guaranteed.
Life Insurance
If helping loved ones maintain a standard of living and avoid financial hardships after your passing is a priority for you, life insurance products can help. A general rule is that you may want to seek coverage between five and seven times your gross annual income. As far as the various types of policies go, they can generally be placed into one of two categories: term and permanent.
Term insurance generally provides coverage for a specified period of time and pays out a specified amount of coverage to your beneficiaries only if you die within that time period. A permanent insurance policy, on the other hand, will stay permanently in effect for the rest of your life, as long as premiums continue to be paid.
Tax-Efficient Strategies
Rising taxes may be a concern for anyone — especially for individuals approaching retirement. Having a solid strategy in place for how you will pay taxes on your retirement income can be an important component to living on a fixed income and avoiding surprises come tax time.
Investing in or purchasing a tax-deferred vehicle means your money can compound interest for years, without paying current income taxes, potentially allowing it to earn interest at a faster rate. Tax-deferred vehicles only allow you to defer paying income taxes until the money is withdrawn — presumably during retirement when you may be in a lower tax bracket. However, few financial vehicles avoid taxes altogether.
Because tax-deferred vehicles are generally designed to help individuals work toward specific long-term goals, there may be restrictions on when money can be withdrawn without penalty. Early withdrawals may be subject to charges and fees. Withdrawals prior to age 59 ½ may be subject to an additional 10 percent federal tax.
Our firm is not permitted to offer, and no statement contained herein shall constitute, tax or legal advice. You should consult a legal or tax professional on any such matters.
Long-Term Care Strategies
As the oldest baby boomers begin to wind through their 70s, one of the biggest concerns may not be outliving income, but outliving good health. With at-home care services averaging $20 per hour and assisted living facility costs averaging $3,628 per month,1 it’s understandably daunting. Does your retirement income strategy account for this kind of possibility? Would you be prepared for twice that amount as a married couple?
Considering that you could have to reduce your financial means before Medicaid will pay for long-term care and neither your employer group health insurance nor major medical insurance will cover long-term care, you may want to consider planning ahead for these potential expenses.
We can help evaluate your situation and determine what kinds of products could fit into a comprehensive long-term care strategy, one that is suited to your needs and circumstances.
1 Genworth Financial. April 2016. “Genworth 2016 Cost of Care Survey.” Accessed Aug. 31, 2016.
IRA & 401(k) Rollovers
When you change jobs or retire, there are four things you can generally do with the assets in any employer-sponsored retirement plan:
- Leave the money where it is.
- Take the cash (and pay income taxes and perhaps a 10 percent additional federal tax if you are younger than age 59½).
- Transfer the money to another employer plan (if the new plan allows).
- Roll the money over into an IRA.
Rolling over from one qualified plan to another qualified plan allows your money to continue growing tax-deferred until you receive distributions in retirement. We can help you determine if a rollover is the right move for you.
IRA Legacy Planning
IRA accounts have become one of the largest types of assets inherited by loved ones. If you don’t anticipate needing your IRA money in retirement, you may wish to consider a legacy planning strategy that potentially reduces taxes and increases the payout your beneficiaries will receive upon your death.
You may want to use some of the value in your IRA to provide your beneficiaries with a regular stream of income while leaving the balance of IRA assets invested for tax-deferred growth. The result may yield substantially more money paid out over the course of your beneficiaries’ lifetimes.
We can help you evaluate your financial situation to determine if IRA legacy planning could help you, and we can work with attorneys and tax professionals to help you meet your goal of structuring a long-lasting inheritance for your loved ones.
Our firm is not permitted to offer, and no statement contained herein shall constitute, tax or legal advice. You should consult a legal or tax professional on any such matters.
Retirement Income Strategies
Life expectancy in the United States is at an all-time high.1 While that’s great news, one drawback to a longer life is the greater possibility of outliving your savings. In fact, in one study, 43 percent of Americans surveyed said their No. 1 fear in retirement was the possibility of outliving their savings.2
Figuring out the best way to make your savings stretch over the next 25 to 30 years can not only be confusing, it can also be overwhelming.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Insurance products like annuities can provide a steady and reliable income stream for the rest of your life, while investment products create opportunities for long-term growth. We can help you incorporate both in a financial strategy designed to put you on the path to the retirement lifestyle you want.
2 Catey Hill. MarketWatch. July 18, 2016. “Older People Fear This More Than Death.”