You may have already chosen to work with a Lighthouse Wealth advisor. However if not; you must first recognize the value of choosing the right professional to manage your wealth. Although your lawyer is necessary to perform some of the legal aspects of your estate planning; it is crucial that you include a qualified and experienced advisor to actually create your plan. Your chosen professional must be licensed and educated for both the insurance and investment industries, with experience in the financial world to be qualified to assist you with your estate plan. They should be knowledgeable in tax advantaged insurance and investments, and have professional designations related to your needs. Many “advisors” out there are basic sales representatives and may not be recommending what is in your best interest or be qualified to provide financial advice.
Whether you are approaching retirement or already comfortably retired, it is important to have a written and comprehensive retirement plan specific to your needs and goals. Not only does this provide security and comfort that you will be provided for at any age, it gives you a blueprint or road map to follow. Income streams can be projected realistically to ensure the lifestyle you worked hard to achieve is protected from risks and the “tax man”. Our team at Lighthouse Wealth can partner with you to cover all the bases and provide you with the personalized advice you need. We will build you a retirement plan that protects your pensions, your savings, and ultimately your lifestyle.
You might be surprised to learn that proper estate planning requires multiple areas of expertise and very seldom can a lawyer alone do the job properly.
Estate planning is a crucial part of wealth management, particularly if your estate involves significant assets and more complex issues that can create avoidable costs to your estate and challenges for your executor(s). When properly structured, an estate plan can reduce the taxes and expenses related to your estate, simplify and speed the transition of assets to the next generation and ensure that your beneficiaries are protected.
It is about much more than just having a will.
So what can we do to help you properly plan for the transition of your estate?
This initial stage involves creating a full list of all of your assets and liabilities including real estate, investments, accounts, valuable personal property, and details of any businesses you may own. The cost to purchase or set up these assets (known as the Adjusted Cost Basis or ACB) is also an important detail necessary to calculate potential future tax liabilities. We would also need to review your recent tax return(s) to document details of carry-forward capital gains and losses. It is also wise to document the location and pertinent details regarding your personal documents. These include:
Once we have detailed the assets and liabilities involved in your estate, we need to define your goals both personal and financial. Using these, we can make specific recommendations to achieve these goals the best way possible.
The team at Lighthouse Wealth Management will design a plan to achieve your goals and help you organize your estate. Together with the aid of your lawyer and your accountant, we can either review your existing Will or help you create a Will and Power of Attorney, consider the value of using trust structures or estate freezes to protect your estate and your family, review and discuss tax planning tools and strategies, and recommend appropriate products where necessary to complete the plan. For our business and farm owner clients, special attention must be paid to corporate share structures, exit strategies and tax implications. Investments and life insurance must also be structured properly using the appropriate financial products and having the correct beneficiaries in place. Once the initial plan is created, we will review it with you and make adjustments if necessary before it is implemented.
This is decision time. You may have already chosen to work with a Lighthouse Wealth advisor, however if not you must first recognize the value of choosing the right professional to manage your wealth. Although your lawyer is necessary to perform some of the legal aspects of your estate planning, it is crucial that you include a qualified financial advisor to actually create your plan. Your chosen professional must be licensed and educated for both the insurance and investment industries, with experience in the banking world to be qualified to assist you with your estate plan. They should be knowledgeable in tax planning, legal issues, insurance and investments. Many “advisors” out there are actually sales representatives and may not be recommending what is in your best interest or be qualified to provide financial advice.
Once you choose your estate planer, and you have become comfortable with your estate plan recommendations you will likely have to make changes to where your investment assets are held, apply for life insurance if needed, and meet with your other professionals to finalize or update your important legal documents. Our team can also assist you by introducing you to trusted professionals in your area that are experts in their field.
Once your plan is in place, we will periodically review what is in place to ensure everything is still appropriate to your goal set. Your goals may change, tax and legal implications may have changed, and new strategies may become available. Regular review and updates keep your estate plan current so that when the time comes, it will provide for the most effective transition to your loved ones or the causes that you believe in.
Successful people often comment to us… we are paying too much taxes. What they don’t know is that it can get worse later in life (and death) if not properly planned for today. We do indeed, have a complex tax system here in Canada which makes careful tax planning essential for everyone. Through careful planning and pro-activity, the tax losses can be greatly reduced. Consideration must be given to marginal tax rates, available credits, income tested benefits and claw-backs, and the different tax attributes of the assets that form your estate.
With expertise in tax planning and the development of income integration strategies, our team at Lighthouse Wealth can partner with you and your accountants to help you understand your unique tax considerations and options and to develop a custom tailored plan to help you manage and minimize the tax burden realized over your life.
After all, it’s not what you make, but what you keep that determines your lifestyle potential.
For business owners, Lighthouse Wealth Management provides advanced corporate planning services geared toward integrating their corporate financial/business planning with their personal wealth management strategy. Through a multi-disciplinary approach, we integrate tax planning, asset management, insurance strategies, and intergenerational wealth management. The end result is simplicity where complexity once rested, and a significant improvement to your after tax spending power.
In addition to partnering with you to simplify and improve your business’ impact to your personal and family life, Lighthouse Wealth Management has partnered with industry leading product providers to provide excellent pension plans, group benefits programs, and group retirement savings programs. Our team will review your current programs and will work toward identifying opportunities that will ensure you attain the greatest value for your valued employees while minimizing the financial burden to your bottom line.
Since 1993, Lighthouse Wealth Management has been providing corporate and personal, life, health and group insurance recommendations to our clients. We pride ourselves on our personal contact, hands on approach, and the ability of each and every one of our team members to provide knowledgeable and professional insurance advice and service. Before ever beginning to set up an insurance policy, our team members will first develop an understanding of your unique needs and circumstances, and in most situations will complete a comprehensive needs analysis process. We will discuss the results with you and help you determine what options may be best suited to provide for your needs. Some of the most common insurance planning needs that we work on for our clients are as follows:
We can help you to protect your family and loved ones in the event of a death or disability. In addition to protecting the people you care about, we can help you to significantly enhance the value of your estate by passing along more assets than you could otherwise achieve through a purely investment-driven strategy. One of the main ways we can help you do this is through tax-exempt life insurance.
Like a pension or non-registered account, tax-exempt life insurance serves as another asset within your overall portfolio—with some unique advantages.
Under the federal Income Tax Act:
What’s more, tax-exempt life insurance also provides:
Living benefits products not only protect your wealth, they give you the financial freedom to maintain your lifestyle or obtain the care you need in the event of an injury or illness.
Estate Protection Planning is designed to help you transfer more of your wealth to your heirs by protecting the full value of your estate’s assets from taxes. It allows you to leave a lasting legacy for your family and can significantly lessen the burden on your loved ones.
The Estate Protector planning helps prevent the erosion or liquidation of your estate by providing a life insurance benefit that can be used to:
Executive life insurance planning enables you to provide your managers and executives with a supplementary benefit package. In this instance, both you and your executive purchase a life insurance policy with your executive named as the insured. Both of you will split the benefits. This form of insurance provides protection for an executive’s family, while you benefit from an investment offering tax-deferred growth.
The sudden loss of a key person can create a difficult and costly void to fill. If your company relies heavily on the skills and contributions of an individual, you may wish to consider taking out life insurance on this person (or persons) to help mitigate the costs associated with replacing them and the potential disruption to profitability through that period.
Insured annuity planning helps you to transfer a portion of your wealth and can serve as an important asset protection and income enhancement solution.
An annuity is a contract that binds an issuer to provide you with a steady stream of income payments in return for a lump sum deposit. With an insured annuity, a portion of each of your annuity payments covers the premiums on an insurance policy, ensuring that an amount equal to your original capital is provided to your beneficiaries when your estate is settled. As with any annuity, an insured annuity is irrevocable once purchased.
Insured annuities provide the following benefits for your estate:
An insured annuity also allows you to:
Like mutual funds, segregated funds are professionally managed and invested in a portfolio of securities. However, segregated funds are also insurance contracts that offer additional benefits such as a guarantee of your principle investment on death or at maturity.
Segregated funds can help you insure your retirement and maximize your estate in the following ways:
Upon the death of the annuitant, a guarantee between 75 and 100 percent of your initial deposit, or the greater of your investment value, will flow directly to your named beneficiaries.
Proceeds of a segregated fund policy held in a non-registered account can pass directly to your named beneficiaries, without passing through your estate. Therefore, these funds are not subject to probate, lawyer’s or executor’s fees. However, your estate is taxed on any applicable gains.
Regardless of market performance, segregated funds guarantee 75 to 100 percent of your principle investment (less withdrawals) at the maturity date (a minimum of 10 years from the date of your deposit). At maturity, the greater of the current market value or the guarantee will be paid to you.
When there is no reasonable expectation of bankruptcy at the time of your investment, and a “family class” beneficiary is named, a segregated fund can also potentially safeguard your assets from potential creditors in the future.
