Families and individuals often have several disconnected professionals providing their wealth management needs: investing, tax planning and preparation, insurance assessment, and estate planning. With this approach no single person or firm is responsible for coordinating your entire wealth management plan, leaving ample room for problems to arise as each advisor may operate without regard to the others. In addition to managing your portfolio, Meritas provides comprehensive wealth management, serving as the “quarterback” for your team of advisors to develop solutions that will work for generations to come while minimizing the complexities of affluence so that you can peacefully enjoy the fruits of your labor. These services typically do not require additional fees.
Estate and Life Event Planning
- Serve as the quarterback for your estate planning, coordinating with your attorneys, accountants and insurance agents, to ensure consistency and provide an assessment that is unbiased by commissions opportunities.
- Review your Trusts, Wills and Powers of Attorney to ensure that our investment plan for you is consistent with these documents and that all of your estate and incapacity planning needs have been met. We can also store copies of the documents for your piece of mind.
- Develop or review strategies for asset protection and wealth transfer with your attorneys and accountants.
- Review liquidity needs under a variety of scenarios.
- Assist with estate distributions after a death in the family and assist the trustee, accountants and attorneys with IRS filings. We can help with what can be overwhelming tasks during difficult times.
- Help plan for the financial consequences of major life changes such as marriage, divorce, children, grandchildren, retirement or the sale of a business.
Retirement Planning
- Help you establish a plan that can allow you to retire when you wish, with the income level you desire.
- Evaluate employer benefit options to help you optimize your financial strength.
- Evaluate retirement offers or pension distribution options from your employer.
Tax Planning
- Coordinate tax reduction strategies with your accountants and provide year-end tax reports.
- Plan for asset sales and coordinate with your accountants to minimize taxation.
Insurance Assessment
- Review existing life insurance policies.
- Life insurance commission can be surprisingly high which can make it difficult for an insurance agent to provide objective advice. We can help evaluate insurance options for estate planning without being influenced by any potential commissions.