Insurance & Annuity Planning

Insurance Planning

If there’s one thing certain about life – it’s the uncertainty that living it brings. The best laid plans can sometimes come to naught! Even though you may think you’ve covered all the bases, life sometimes has a funny way of throwing you a curveball when you least expect it. Luckily, while you can strive your best to plan wisely and thoroughly, you can also hedge your bets against the unintended through prudent Insurance Planning.

Without proper planning, be it Investment Planning, Retirement Planning, or Estate Planning, you’ll likely not invest successfully, retire comfortably, or leave a meaningful legacy for your beneficiaries. And without a well-thought-out Insurance Plan, every one of those facets of a financial plan could be exposed to unforeseen risks.

Good planning helps you identify and plan for all the risks involved in every aspect of your financial life. Thoughtful Insurance Planning helps mitigate the risks you can’t foresee or those that you are unable to plan around!

What We Can Do for You

They say that some things are better to have BEFORE the need is felt – even if they are NEVER ever used. Insurance is one of those things. Rather than seeing insurance as an “expense”, most people experience it as peace of mind. That’s the essence of our Insurance Planning service.

Our Insurance Planning service covers:

Comprehensive Review: We’ll review existing plans, if you have them, to ensure they continue to fit your needs. But if you don’t have an insurance plan, we’re here to advise and guide you on which plans make best sense for you and your family.
Home, Car and other asset insurance: It is our belief that you shouldn’t over-insure, but you should never un-insure or under-insure either. The type (and value) of your home, car and other assets will determine what insurance, and how much of it, you should buy.
Death-event security: If you have people that depend upon you being around for many years to come, like your spouse/partner, minor children, aged parents, we’ll advise on what life insurance policies best meet your needs.
Retirement income through annuities: Sometimes, the best way to guarantee retirement income is the simplest – Annuities. Of course, these products vary in terms and pay-out options and conditions. Our experts will help make sense of it all!
Critical illness protection: You may be in the best of health now, but illness has a way of sneaking up on the fittest amongst us. Let us help you determine if you need to insure against a critical illness and, if so, under what terms.
Disability and long-term care protection: Accidents, at home, at work, during your commute, can leave you severely disabled and financially stressed. As can debilitating illness! We’ll help you insure against such unexpected turn of events.
Travel insurance: Sometimes, even the safest of travel plans can turn into nightmares. Whether it’s an illness or accident overseas, a missed flight, lost baggage or natural disasters that interrupt your plans – if you are insured, you’ll likely be less stressed about dealing with the consequences.
Health, dental and wellness insurance: With family and personal medical care becoming more expensive by the day, it may be prudent to cover yourself and your family through appropriate health insurance plans.
Funding children’s education: Even though your children are of tender age, sometimes insuring their lives may make good sense in the long-term, especially in helping to pay for college or university. Paying just a few hundred dollars a month in premiums now, could result in a windfall payment by the time your child is of college or university-going age. We’ll help you decide if this is a good option for you by doing the math!
Insuring estate and succession plans: When structured correctly, insurance can be a great estate planning tool as well, especially when it comes to shielding your beneficiaries from paying taxes or fees on their inheritance. Partners in business may also use insurance policies as a great financial tool to aid in succession planning. We’ll help you structure an insurance plan that makes sense for your needs.

*The cost and availability of life insurance depend on factors such as age, health, and the type and amount of insurance purchased. Before implementing a strategy involving life insurance, it would be prudent to make sure that you are insurable by having the policy approved. As with most financial decisions, there are expenses associated with the purchase of life insurance. Policies commonly have mortality and expense charges. In addition, if a policy is surrendered prematurely, there may be surrender charges and income tax implications.

Life Insurance

A popular misconception about life insurance planning, is that it’s something to do with ensuring others (your policy beneficiaries) enjoy the fruits of your insurance once you’ve passed. While that is just one aspect of planning for the inevitable, if executed properly, life insurance planning can offer multiple benefits – even as you live to enjoy them!

Why Life Insurance Planning Is Important for Individuals & Families

Death benefits pay-out for survivors is only one aspect of life insurance. If the policy holder passes, the cash value of the policy can help young families meet their financial needs, or can even help pay off a mortgage. However, there are other facets of life insurance that are equally important.

Most life insurance products allow policy holders to tap into funds as the value of their policy grows over time. In case you are looking for tax-deferred gains, a life insurance policy offers that too, because you are only taxed once you withdraw the money from your policy. With the right life insurance planning strategy in place, your policy can act as a great source of tax-free wealth transfer to your beneficiaries.

In retirement, a well-planned life insurance strategy can serve to generate additional retirement income, or it might even provide additional living health care benefits in your old-age.

What We Can Do for You

Not every life insurance policy provides you all of these benefits. Our experienced Life Insurance Planning specialists will discuss your needs in detail, and then customize a life insurance plan that meets those specific goals.

Some of the life insurance planning tools and products available to our advisors include:

Term Life Insurance: If you have a specific time-horizon over which you need protection, then Term Life Insurance policies are definitely worth considering. These policies are designed to provide short to intermediate term coverage at an affordable cost. For instance, if you have young children whom you wish to provide for until they are older – say 15 to 20 years – or if you have an unpaid mortgage that you want your family to pay off in the event of your untimely passing, then a Term Life policy is worth considering.
Permanent Life Insurance: Permanent life policies not only provide insurance protection for life, but are also a great way to grow the value of your policy. The enhanced cash value might then be tapped subsequently, to meet future needs, such as funding college/university education of a child, or creating an additional retirement income stream.
Participating (or Whole) Life Insurance: Depending on what your investment goals are, our insurance advisory team might recommend a Participating Life Insurance product for you. With these products, the cash value and death benefit payout of your policy can experience tax-advantaged growth within the policy. You might also be eligible to borrow tax-free funds (for any purpose you might deem fit) against the cash value of your policy.
Universal Life Insurance: If you are in search of higher savings and earnings potential from your life insurance policy, then a Universal Life Insurance might be what our advisers recommend. These policies also offer great flexibility, as the amount insured can be changed, and premiums can be adjusted (increased, deferred, decreased), while enabling policy-holders to also withdraw part of the cash value.
Variable Life Insurance: If you are someone looking to leverage stock market performance through your insurance policy, then a Variable Life Insurance product might be what you need. They provide policy-holders the option to invest their cash value in a host of insurer-recommended stocks, bonds, money-market funds and other investment products. Our insurance specialists will make you aware of the all the risks and opportunities associated with a variable insurance product.

Annuities

Not everyone of us is equally prepared for retirement. While some of us are fortunate to have built a nest egg that will last us through our Golden Years, others will depend on government programs for retirement income. Regardless of which side of this divide you are on, Annuities can be a powerful vehicle to help you fund your retirement dreams.

Whether it is to deliver guaranteed income to you and your loved ones in retirement, to protect your principle while also providing income, or to provide death benefits to your beneficiaries upon your passing, there are annuity products to meet every conceivable need.

Why Annuities Are Important

The short answer: Diversification. Peace of Mind. Flexibility!

Many retirees and soon-to-be retirees are concerned over the safety of their investments in mutual funds, ETFs and stocks. The gyration in the stock market is often hard to stomach for seniors entering their Golden Years. With the help of a well-chosen Annuity, one can add a layer of diversification to your retirement portfolio.

Then, there’s peace of mind. Annuities are structured as investment vehicles that are insulated from the fate of stock market behaviour. The nature of Annuities means you’ll never need to worry about when/how long you’ll need to wait before you recoup losses from the next stock market crash! Your Annuity investments are sheltered from such risks.

And of course, for the soon-to-be retiree who is concerned that he/she has missed the proverbial retirement savings boat, Annuities offer good news! Because there’s no limit to how much you can contribute in Annuities, on an after-tax basis, you’ll have flexibility in how much you save, and will never have to worry whether it’s too late to play the “catch up” game.

What We Can Do for You

If used strategically, Annuities can be an extremely powerful retirement income planning vehicle. Here are some of the ways that our Annuity experts can help you:

Use annuities as a retirement planning option: Our team of specialists will work with you to review your entire existing portfolio to determine whether Annuities are right for you. In some cases, an overexposure to other fixed-income products, like Bonds and Dividend-paying stocks, could still leave your retirement income exposed. We’ll help you decide if Annuities are the right retirement planning option for you.
Make cost-effective Annuity choices: Not all Annuities are created alike. While they may generally be a great choice for generating fixed-income in retirement, the cost associated with producing such income could sometimes be high. Our Annuity specialists are familiar with the entire Annuity landscape, and can help identify the most cost-advantaged Annuity investments for you.
Receive tax-advantaged income: We help clients manage their tax liability through prudent product selection. Some annuities, like tax-deferred variable products, enable investors to receive tax-deferred income now – by not including such income to determine your current tax liability. Subsequently in retirement, when you might be in a lower tax bracket, your annuity-dependent income will not be a source of significant taxes.
Build flexibility into your retirement planning objectives: We do this by choosing annuity products that can easily be switched between investment portfolios without the risk of triggering associated taxes. So, if your investment objectives change during the investment horizon, you can effortlessly switch to a different annuity to support your new objectives, without fear of being saddled with a huge tax liability.

*There is a surrender charge imposed generally during the first 5 to 7 years that you own the contract. Withdrawals prior to age 59 ½ may result in a 10% IRS tax penalty, in addition to any ordinary income tax. The guarantee of the annuity is backed by the financial strength of the underlying insurance company. Investment sub-account values will fluctuate with changes in market conditions.

*Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks and charges and expenses of the variable annuity carefully before investing. An investment in a variable annuity involves investment risk, including possible loss of principal. Variable annuities are designed for long-term investing. The contract, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than the total amount invested. Variable annuities are subject to insurance-related charges including mortality and expense charges, administrative fees, and the expenses associated with the underlying sub-accounts. The prospectus contains this and other information about the variable annuity.Contact the issuing firm or your registered representative to obtain a prospectus, which should be read carefully before investing or sending money.

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Insurance & Annuity Planning