Income Protection & Asset Preservation

Our professional responsibility doesn’t end with building your wealth. You must protect it. To give appropriate recommendations for safeguarding your income and preserving your wealth, we will need to understand your income sources, both now and in the future.  Our strategy selection will be time-bound and focused on the most promising strategies.

Income Protection

• Disability insurance
  There are many things that could derail and impact your ability to earn at the level you currently do. Therefore, an important factor in figuring out how much coverage you need is the payout percentage, as most policies only offer 60% income replacement.
• Long-term care insurance
  Most companies do not offer it as part of a standard employee benefits package, but many now offer it as a supplemental option. In most cases, Long-term care insurance makes sense no matter what your income level because you may need to adjust your standard of living or what you leave to your heirs in order to cover health care expenses, especially if expenses run higher than industry averages.
• Umbrella insurance
  Umbrella insurance continues protection where other liability policies stop, both in terms of dollar limitations and scope of coverage. When looking at personal risk management, the umbrella is the most critical to address. You must protect your family's net worth.
• Life insurance
  Some think receiving $1 million in life insurance is a nice number and appropriate coverage. However, you need to look at whether that amount will provide your family with adequate income. Depending on your assumptions, you have to do the math.  Business owners are even more complicated. Life insurance commonly plays a critical role in succession planning. If your business has multiple owners, considering a buy-sell agreement around life insurance may be a prudent move so that if one partner dies, the business can be preserved and allow the family of the deceased person to extract the funds they need.

Asset Preservation

Asset protection planning, commonly known as asset preservation, is where individuals or entities reposition certain assets from nonexempt status, meaning they are subject to creditors’ claims to be exempt.

What is important to remember is that you are not allowed to begin the asset preservation planning process during a legal dispute. You and your family work hard to maintain and improve your standard of living through work, savings, and investments. Ensuring that your financial assets remain safe and secure, available for yourself and your heirs is among the most critical tasks of your life.

Therefore, strategic financial and estate planning should begin now, so you can help ensure you, your family, and their future are protected later. At Echelon, we work with estate planning attorneys to establish plans for asset preservation and protection.