What Makes Us Different: Our Philosophy
We believe in understanding your whole financial life, much like a chess board. We believe in risk management and in being strategic. We believe in putting your needs above our own. We believe in helping you build your castle, but in also constructing a mote of protection for when the winds blow.
Your Financial Chess Board
We often explain that our lives are like a chess board. Each piece represents a component of your financial life. For example, Your home, checking or savings accounts, IRA, 401k, auto/home insurance, trust, brokerage accounts, annuity, etc.
What happens when you move one piece on the chessboard? We know that one move is not a move unto itself. One move has a rippling effect on the entire game board. Likewise, when you make financial decisions in one area of your financial life it can impact several others. Since this is true, proper coordination and integration in one’s financial life is important thereby creating the efficiency and optimal performance one desires.
Comprehensive & Holistic
As noted above, we seek to understand your whole financial chessboard. This approach seeks to understand all components at play and consequently provides higher levels of confidence and synergy. This is why a comprehensive and holistic view of your financial life is essential to develop the necessary financial strategies for your journey. But a holistic conversation is not just about investment statements and real estate holdings, it’s about what these financial instruments mean to you. It’s about understanding your fears and concerns, your aspirations and your dreams. In short, we listen and want to understand your financial life.
Best Interest
It might seem obvious, but we believe that everything we do should be focused on and for your best interest. This is at the heart of what it means to be a fiduciary. This is why it’s important for us to understand before being understood. Acting in your best interest also means that education must be job one. As you understand more fully the components of your financial life you will have an increased claim on inner peace.
Walls & Castles
Everyone wants to build their castle, but protection is the first step in building a strong financial house. For example, if you didn’t come home, what would happen to your family? If you got sued and didn’t have proper coverage what would result? If you lost your capacity to produce, who would provide?
Today, it’s highly impractical to have a 20-foot wall or moat around your property. Can you imagine what the neighbors would say? What serves as the wall today? A properly structured insurance program should allow everyone to have a wall that is the correct height for their particular castle. It shouldn’t be too big, nor too small. Nor should it have holes. Unnecessary holes could cause havoc for an estate if one experienced a major car wreck, a house fire, a premature death, a lengthy disability, a long-term illness or a law suit.
What are we to learn? Put as much attention into building your castle as protecting it. Bad things happen to good people every day. Remember, the great counsel, “If you are prepared you shall not fear.”
Risk Management
As noted, protecting your castle is important. We face a variety of economic risks in our lives. Through our detailed planning process we believe it is important to first identify, then quantify the various risks we face. Examples of these risks might be: market risk, survivorship risk, inflation risk, long term care risk, longevity risk and legacy risk. Each client conversations includes a discussion regarding risk management.