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Do You Need an Estate and Asset Protection Planning Checkup?
As a general statement, most of the general public who earn a good living and/or have amassed wealth, do not have the proper estate or asset protection plan.
The following are statistics about the more affluent general public when looking at a group of ten.
1-2 will NOT have a Simple Will
5-6 will NOT have Durable Powers of Attorney
5-6 will NOT have Marital Living Trusts
9-10 will NOT have a Family Limited Partnership (FLP)
7-8 will NOT have an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT)
*Provided by the Wealth Preservation Institute
The need for estate planning documents is obvious. You need a will, especially if you have minor children, to make sure the appropriate people receive custody of the children in the event of a terrible accident killing both parents. You need durable powers to make sure the living spouse or other loved ones do not have to go to court to make life sustaining decisions or to sign legal documents for someone who is incapacitated. Living trusts are needed to maximize estate tax exemptions and to avoid probate. FLPs are needed to centralize governance of family assets and discount the value of the estate for estate tax purposes. An ILIT is needed to pass the death benefit to your heirs estate tax-free.
If you do not have the above mentioned tools you need a checkup.
What about asset protection planning
Ask yourself the following questions:
Do you have real estate owned in your own name?
Do you own stocks or bonds in your own name?
Do you have significant equity in your personal residence and do not live in a state like TX or FL which asset protects the home’s value?
If you have a boat, wave runner, snowmobile, plane, etc, are they owned by a multi-member LLC?
If you answered no to any or certainly most or all of the above questions, you are in serious need of a checkup.
What about protection from stock market losses?
Ask yourself the following questions:
Are you invested in assets at risk to stock market losses?
Did you lose 25%-60% of your invested assets when the stock market crashed from 2007-March of 2009?
Do you have money growing in wealth-building tools that will never go backwards due to stock market losses?
Do you have money growing at a 7%-8% guaranteed rate of return (accumulation value) coupled with a guaranteed lifetime income you can never outlive?
If you answered yes to the first two questions and no the last two questions, you should contact our office for a checkup and to learn about the unique wealth-building tools you can use to reach your financial goals with the least amount of risk.
