Prepare for the Unexpected
One of the commitments our team has made to the families that we serve is not only will we help them achieve their goals and dreams, but we will also help them prepare for the unexpected risks they may encounter during their lives.
Throughout our lives, we take action to prepare ourselves for future unexpected outcomes, including:
1. Go to the dentist to keep our teeth and gums healthy
2. Get an annual physical to catch potential health issues early
3. Buy property insurance to protect against potential catastrophic damage to your home
Protecting your investments against future unknown risks should be just as important throughout your life. Financial risks include both ones that we can control as well as those that are out of our control. Let’s explore both types of future risks and how we help families prepare for them.
Risks within your control include how much you save and how much you spend. By analyzing and modeling different scenarios of both saving and spending, we can design a financial roadmap that meets your spending goals in the future when income is shifted from getting paid a salary to self-funded either through starting a new business or starting to receive Social Security. Both decisions also include gap income needed from your own savings and investments.
When to take Social Security is one of the most important decisions you will make about your future financial success, and is based on several factors, including age, marital status, and longevity. We will explore this topic in much more detail in a future blog. For now, if you have questions about this topic, please reach out to us to discuss your specific situation.
Risks outside your control includes loss of income, loss of health, and loss of life. Any of these situations can be financially devastating to a family’s financial future. By taking a proactive approach to these unknowns, we can help families eliminate, mitigate, or manage each of these potential catastrophic outcomes.
The loss of income can occur from a variety of reasons, including getting laid off, going from a double income family to a single income family, or finding yourself financially responsible for a parent of child in need. We help families plan for these situations by modeling various scenarios and how it impacts your goals. Then we build a contingent plan together to help mitigate this potential future risk.
The loss of health for you or a spouse can occur suddenly or as we age. No one knows our future health, but we do know that as we age, the cost to keep us healthy rises. By running loss of health models assuming declining health of one or both spouses, we can help you develop a plan to self-fund or use insurance to help lessen the burden of this potentially devastating expense for a family. Obviously, the earlier we conduct this planning, the more options will be available. Not everyone needs to buy insurance to take care of this type of situation, but if you do, it needs to be in place while you are still healthy and insurable.
The loss of life of a loved one is emotionally devastating, but it can also place a financial burden on the remaining spouse moving forward. When we analyze this type of loss, we take into consideration not only the reduced income from your lost loved one, but also the potential future expenses for the remaining spouse, whether that means raising children, private caregiving as you age, right sizing a home, and making sure all investments still meet the goals of the remaining spouse’s needs.
Our team is committed to serving our families with passion and purpose. We not only help you achieve your financial goals, but we also help you prepare for unexpected risks that could jeopardize your financial security. Please contact us to see how we can help your family.