Financial Solutions
Solutions for you and your family
When it comes to financial matters, it's easy to see a vision of where you want to go. It's harder to figure out how to get there. Whether you're saving for retirement, investing for the future, funding a college education or reaching for any of a hundred other financial goals, we can help.
Solutions for your business
For your business to reach its full potential, you need to understand the financial tools at your disposal. We can apply our expertise to help your business succeed.
Financial Planning
A dynamic approach to helping you and your family reach your financial goals
We use financial planning tools and resources to help you and your family reach your financial goals. We provide expertise in the six areas with the biggest impact on your personal financial situation, and develop plans and strategies to help you succeed.
We help you identify where you want to go, and show you how to get there, turning financial planning into a powerful force for you.

- Current Financial Position: The first step involves getting a snapshot of where things are today, including assets, liabilities, net worth and cash flow.
- Protection Planning: Financially protecting yourself and your family from death, disability, accident and illness
- Investment Planning: Strategies to help you retain assets and minimize payment of unnecessary taxes.
- Tax Planning: Strategies to help you retain assets and minimize payment of unnecessary taxes.
- Retirement Planning: Creating accumulation and income strategies that help you achieve a financially secure retirement.
- Estate Planning: Strategies for preserving and distributing assets to heirs in a way that fits your goals and desires, while minimizing estate taxes, probate expenses and estate administrative costs.
Understanding your current financial situation is one of the most important aspects of doing financial planning. Your current assets, liabilities, liquidity and cash flow will affect almost every other short or long-term goal that you have.
Many people don’t realize the long-term impact of the financial decisions they make on a day-to-day basis. Your financial needs in the event of a death or disability will be closely related to your current situation, and areas such as income tax liability, asset allocation, estate tax liability, ownership status of assets, and control of assets are all inter-related.
If you already have a good understanding of your current financial situation, congratulations! If you could benefit from a greater understanding of where you stand today, there are numerous ways that you can begin.
Use worksheets to calculate your net worth and track your cash flow. Personal finance programs such as Quicken™ or MS Money™ are also helpful in gaining a better understanding of where you stand today.
For help in identifying strengths and weaknesses in your current financial picture, or for help in developing a comprehensive financial plan, select the "Contact Us" option located in the main site menu at the top of the page. Our Financial Advisors are just a click away!
Protecting your family from major financial risks is one of the cornerstones of any sound financial program. Life insurance, disability insurance, health coverage and long-term care insurance should all be evaluated to help minimize your exposure to financial risk.
By working with a knowledgeable Financial Advisor, you can develop a comprehensive approach to assessing your need for additional coverage. To help you get started, click on the Financial Calculators link located in the main site menu at the top of the page.
While there are more complicated systems for calculating your insurance needs, this provides you with an indicator of whether you should consider increasing your life insurance coverage.
Managing risk in your investments
Successful investing is based on managing risk — understanding what risk means and using it to your advantage.
Risk refers to the chance that an investment's value or return will be lower than expected. Investments with potential for greater loss are viewed as riskier than those with a lesser chance of loss.
However, the risks associated with investments differ in the long-term compared to the short-term. In the long-term, so-called "risky" investments may offer a greater chance of reaching a financial objective.
Risk Levels
For example, a government bond that guarantees a return of principal and $100 interest after 30 days is risk-free in the short term, since the return will always be $100 regardless of events in the financial markets, if held to maturity. In contrast, common stock may have the potential of earning as much as $200 and as little as $0 and offer no protection of principal.
In the long-term, the picture changes. Based on historical stock performance, risk faced by stocks declines over the long-term. The risk faced by government bonds increases, however, since their long-term returns they offer are frequently outperformed by other types of investments and may not always keep up with inflation and taxes.
The risk and return of any one investment should be viewed in relation to your total investment portfolio — the combination of investments you’re making. If you hold just one or two accounts, you are more exposed to risk than if your money is more widely diversified. Diversification means investing in instruments which behave differently during a given economic situation or time period.
A Financial Advisor can help you determine an appropriate level of risk and diversification for your financial goals, profile and time horizon. Talk to an advisor or representative today about developing a customized investment strategy.
As you put together your own estate plan, consider these elements:
- A will can specify who gets what and name guardians for minor children.
- Durable powers of attorney allow whomever you choose to make financial and medical decisions if you become unable to do so yourself.
- Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance policies and the like must be coordinated with the rest of your estate plan. Those assets will go to the listed beneficiaries, regardless of your will.
- Titling of assets also should be coordinated with your total estate plan. Property owned jointly with right of survivorship, for instance, typically goes to the survivor, superseding any instructions in a will.
- Trusts are flexible tools that can be used to manage investments during your lifetime and beyond, distribute assets to heirs under circumstances that you spell out, minimize estate taxes, maintain the privacy of your financial affairs and protect assets from lawsuits and seizures.
Estate planning can protect your family's interests and ensure that your wishes are carried out.
- If there is a surviving spouse and no surviving children or surviving parent of decedent, all property passes to the spouse.
- If there is no surviving children but decedent is survived by a parent or parents, the first $50,000, plus one-half the balance of the estate passes to the surviving spouse. The remainder passes to the decedent's parents.
- If there is a surviving spouse and surviving children of both, the first $50,000 plus one-half the balance of the estate passes to the surviving spouse. The remainder passes to the surviving children equally.
- If there is no spouse and no children, the property is divided evenly between your parents. If no parents are living, it is evenly divided among the descendants of your parents, namely your siblings.
- If there is no living relative, the property reverts to the state.
Business Solutions
To run a successful business, you need to understand the financial choices available to business owners. At our firm, we apply our expertise, resources and tools to find long-term solutions that can help your business grow and succeed.
- Business planning: The key to protecting your business and your net worth.
Business Continuation
- Key Person Life Insurance: Protect your business against the loss of key people.
- Business estate planning: How to preserve your life's work.
- Business continuation:Planning for your business after you're gone.
Benefits for key executives
- Executive Bonus Plans:How to reward key employees.
- The Golden Executive Bonus Agreement: Protecting key employees with life insurance.
- Life Rewards: Providing retirement benefits for key employees.
Planning for changes in ownership
Planning for changes in ownership
You can prepare for the problems that can come with a change in ownership by using these techniques:
Key Employee Life Insurance
Provides you with the funds you need to keep your business running smoothly when you lose a key employee.
Personal estate planning
Carefully incorporating your business needs into a total estate plan can help you meet estate tax and liquidity needs to preserve the full value of your business for your family and associates.
Business Planning
Develop a strategy to preserve your business and your net worth
Effective business continuation is both an "art" and a science. First and foremost, it is an art. Because the best business plan always considers your unique financial goals and objectives, creativity and customization is required to select and tailor those strategies best suited to meet your specific business continuation and benefit needs.
However, business continuation and benefit planning is also a science. The best business plan should take into account the tax and legal ramifications of the various financial strategies adopted. A Financial Advisor or Registered Representative will incorporate both the art and science of business planning in a program recommended to you.
Using business dollars for personal expenses
These valuable concepts can help:
Split-dollar life insurance
Your corporation can help you pay for your own life insurance by "advancing" your money to pay the annual premium. This low-cost benefit can also be available for key employees.
Disability insurance
Your business can provide you with personal disability insurance — which continues a portion of your salary when you're unable to work — and the premiums (in most cases) are tax deductible.
Section 303 stock redemption
Your business may be able to help you pay estate taxes and settlement costs if your stock is worth more than 35 percent of your adjusted gross estate. Under a Section 303 stock redemption, the business redeems some stock from your estate to produce cash to meet your estate's obligations.
How to use employee benefits to increase income and improve retention of key employees
These concepts can help you get the most out of your benefit dollars:
Disability salary continuation planning
A salary continuation plan can help protect you, your key employees and your business from the financial consequences of a disability. If the plan is funded with disability insurance policies, premium payments are considered tax deductible as a necessary business expense.
Qualified pension and profit-sharing plans
Employee-sponsored retirement programs help employees prepare for retirement and allow them to take advantage of special tax breaks. Any contributions you make to the plan are tax deductible.
Life Rewards
Highly compensated executives are limited in the amounts they can save for retirement in qualified plans. Nonqualified plans are available through Life Rewards and allow associates to enhance their retirement benefits.
Split-Dollar insurance
Life insurance can be provided to select executives at a reduced cost through split-dollar insurance plans.
Golden Executive Bonus Arrangement(GEBA)
GEBA and other executive bonus strategies provide life insurance to employees and give your company a current income tax deduction.
Personal financial analysis
This service helps employees manage their money more effectively and achieve their personal financial goals.
Group insurance
Your business can provide a variety of programs, and the tax deductions generated by the premiums you pay make the cost of these benefits even lower. Medical, disability and life insurance are the three most sought-after programs.
The Art and Science of Business Planning can help ensure the ongoing success of your business.
* Subject to the corporate alternative minimum tax for C corporations.
Life Rewards:
Select nonqualified retirement benefits for your key executives
You can provide Life Rewards for your key executives to:
- Secure the services of your most influential executives that may impact profitability.
- Attract new managers.
- Build loyalty in today's high turnover marketplace.
- Provide a second tier of benefits to highly compensated executives disadvantaged by qualified plan limitations.
Three Life Rewards strategies are available:
Life Rewards offer valuable benefits to key executives:
- Lower currently taxable income during their working years
- A survivor benefit for their family
- Tax deferred growth of retirement assets
- Parity for executives limited by qualified plan restrictions
Other advantages of life insurance funded GEBA include:
- You decide who participates
- You can tailor it to the needs of each executive
- It is income tax-deductible for your company
- You can adjust the benefit to meet your future needs
- It is easy to get started
Business estate planning:
How to preserve your life's work
A buy-sell agreement that is funded with life insurance will benefit:
- Prevents conflict with surviving owners
- Ensures that your family receives a fair price for your business
- May set the value of your business for estate-tax purposes
- Provides needed cash
- Keeps new and/or unwanted owners out of the business
- Prevents disputes
- Ensures continuity and orderly transfer of ownership
- May provide tax-free cash to purchase stock
Business continuation planning:
Prepare for the continued success of your business after you're gone.
- Prevents conflict with surviving owners
- Assures a fair price for the business
- May set the value of your business for federal estate tax purposes
- Can provide cash for your estate