The main purpose of life insurance is to protect the financial well being of the family. With a premature death, usually there has not been enough time to accumulate enough assets to maintain the surviving family’s current standard of living. Life insurance provides the funds to pay for last expenses, mortgages and other consumer debt, education of children, and replacing the decedent’s lost income. Term insurance is the least expensive product if it is only needed for 30 years or less. This is an excellent way for the breadwinners of young families to purchase the large amount of coverage that is needed to do the proper job of income replacement. Permanent life insurance is usually the least expensive form of life insurance if the desire is to provide funds to surviving family members for longer than 30 years. Permanent life insurance premiums are level for life and do not increase over time like term life insurance. Permanent life insurance can also be paid up after a few years if that is the desired result. Permanent life insurance has several forms: whole life, universal life, adjustable life, and variable life. The proper form of coverage for your unique set of circumstances can be determined with the help of an experienced insurance brokerage firm such as Group Health Plus.

If you are 65 or older, you have been inundated with junk mail and solicitations to buy every Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage product available. We can help you sift through the maze and direct you to the supplement or advantage product that is right for your unique set of doctor and drug requirements. If you are just turning 65, we can explain your Medicare options and help you sign up for Part A and B of Medicare. Let us do the shopping and comparing of Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage plans for you. We are independent brokers, so we have no allegiance toward any one provider.

Protect your greatest asset: the ability to work and earn a living. Becoming totally disabled due to illness or injury for a long period of time has been termed the “Living Death”. It certainly is a financial death. Quality long term disability income insurance replaces lost income up to age 65 or longer due to a devastating disability from an accident or illness. Ask for a “your own occupation” definition of disability contract when you buy. Make sure there is a “cost of living” rider to keep up with inflation. We can tailor a plan that is right for you.

Planning for Long Term Care is an integral part of retirement and financial planning. Long term care consists of a continuum of services including nursing home care, assisted living, home health care and adult daycare. Nursing care is expensive. The average annual cost of a nursing home is about $70,000 in this part of the country. You can self-insure for these expenses if you have the financial means to do so. Medicaid will pick up custodial care, but the patient must first “spend down” assets to qualify. A modest estate of $500,000 to $1,000,000 can be wiped out by long term care costs. This is especially true if the need is for several years and both a husband and wife need care. Long Term Care insurance will prevent the depletion of a moderate estate and protect your assets. It also gives you the independence to choose where you obtain care and helps maintain your dignity. We can help provide a plan that fits your needs and budget.

Annuities are good vehicles for conservative minded investors. Deferred Fixed and Equity Indexed Annuities are excellent conservative insurance products for IRA and 401k rollovers. You can participate in the gains of the market, but are protected from any losses. They are also great vehicles to guarantee income in the future when you are ready to receive the funds. You cannot outlive your money and when you pass away, any balance not paid out transfers to your beneficiaries. During the income payment phase, you have full control of your funds and can demand payment of the account balance.

Most retirement minded people are concerned about several factors regarding retirement:

• When can I retire?
• Will I outlive my funds?
• When should I start taking Social Security benefits?
• How do I maximize the amount of Social Security payments I am entitled to receive?

We can help answer your questions regarding Social Security through our Social Security Maximization Program. We will also analyze your current budget and retirement budget by doing a thorough analysis of all expenses, income sources, and assets. If any income gaps need to be filled, we can address those gaps with a guaranteed income solution. Based on your unique tolerance for risk, we can help you place and divide funds among three simple category of assets:

• (A) Cash Assets
• (B) Protected Growth Assets
• (C) Risk Growth Assets

There is a Risk-Reward for each category, which means you stand to gain or lose something by placing assets in each category. In A you give up GAINS to get more LIQUIDITY. In B you give up some LIQUIDITY to acquire PROTECTION from risk. In C you give up PROTECTION for higher potential GAINS. The percentage of assets in each category depends on your unique aversion to risk.

What are the “Unwanted Heirs”? There may be a mistaken impression that, at death, your assets will automatically be distributed to your loved ones. Instead, several “unwanted heirs” may step forward first for their share of your estate and siphon off a significant portion of your estate’s total value. These “unwanted heirs” can include: Federal Estate Taxes, State Inheritance Taxes and Estate Administrative Costs (probate costs and professional fees).

Tools to minimize estate shrinkage include:

• Simple wills
• Credit Trust wills
• Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts
• Buy Sell Agreements
• Family Limited Partnerships
• Charitable Giving
• Other Trust Arrangements

With the help of our referral Board Certified Estate Planning and Taxation law partners, along with the proper life insurance arrangements, any size estate can be preserved for the intended heirs. Let us help you coordinate this important task.

If there are no capable and willing family members or business partners to take over your business, do you know what a forced liquidation can do to the value of your business? The liquidation value of a business is almost always substantially less than the value of a business as a going concern. How can a forced liquidation be avoided in the event of your death?

When business liquidation is the only course of action at an owners death, life insurance can provide the funds for “pennies on the dollar” that make the difference between a planned liquidation and a financially disastrous forced liquidation. The funds can be used as working capital to give the executor time to sell the business as a going concern, not piecemeal. The funds also provide surviving family members continuing income and avoids forced liquidation for the purposes of family income needs.

When there are capable family members or business partners that can take over the business, a properly drafted Buy Sell Agreement that is funded with life insurance provides the means to continue the business at the death of a stockholder or partner. The surviving stockholders or partners receive the deceased’s shares or percentage of the business and the surviving family members receive the fair market value of the deceased stockholder’s share in cash. Everyone concerned is made whole and this prevents surviving family members, that never were involved in the business, from interfering in a business they know nothing about. A properly executed Buy Sell Agreement can also “fix the value” of the business for estate tax purposes and prevent the IRS from trying to increase the value of the deceased’s portion of the business in order to obtain more in estate taxes.

There are many different types of non-qualified supplemental retirement plans available for yourself as a business owner and for your valuable key employees. For yourself, the objective is to use business dollars to help satisfy your personal financial security needs. For your valuable key people, the objective is to reward and retain these associates. Depending on the type of business entity you own, i.e., C corporation; S corporation; LLC: partnership; etc., this will determine what type of supplemental plan to use. Other factors to consider for the type of plan to put in place are:

• Probability of your business continuing beyond just one generation
• Differing tax brackets between yourself and your company
• The need to shield assets from creditors and lawsuits.

The more common supplemental retirement plans to consider are:

• Section 162 Bonus Plans (with and without restrictive agreements)
• Split Dollar and Reverse Split Dollar Plans
• Deferred Compensation Plans
• Executive Income Continuation Plans