Your Dreams Matter
At Capehart Financial, we believe everyone should be able to live the retirement they’ve always wanted. Our team of professionals can help you create a well-thought-out strategy, using a variety of investments and insurance products and services, to help you address your financial needs and concerns and support your retirement lifestyle and long-term financial goals.
The Capehart Financial Process
Once we understand your financial situation, risk tolerance and investment objectives, we can help you decide which types of products and services fit within your financial strategy.
We offer services in these three areas:
Grow
Prepare for retirement by putting your hard-earned assets to work.
How?
Are you prepared for a retirement that could last 20 or 30 years, or more? Insurance products like annuities can provide a steady and reliable income stream for the rest of your life, while investment products create opportunities for long-term growth. We can help you incorporate both in a financial strategy designed to put you on the path to the retirement lifestyle you want.
Generally speaking, the longer you invest, the more potential your money has to grow. If you have a longer time horizon, you may want to consider a more aggressive asset allocation with at least a portion of your money. However, if you’d like to reduce your market risk, there are more conservative investment options available that can provide the potential for wealth accumulation. Using these investment options in conjunction with insurance contracts such as annuities can help you design a more conservative retirement strategy.
With pension offerings on the decline, you may want to consider a fixed income component to your financial strategy. Adding an annuity may be an opportunity to help ensure a portion of your retirement income will be guaranteed.
What is an annuity?
An annuity is a contract you purchase from an insurance company. For the premium you pay, you receive certain fixed and/or variable interest crediting options able to compound tax-deferred until withdrawn. When you are ready to receive income distributions, this vehicle offers a variety of guaranteed payout options — some even for life.
Most annuities have provisions that allow you to withdraw a percentage of the value of the contract each year up to a certain limit. However, withdrawals will reduce the contract value and the value of any protected benefits. Excess withdrawals above the restricted limit typically incur “surrender charges” within the first five to 15 years of the contract. Because they are designed as a long-term retirement income vehicle, annuity withdrawals made before age 59 ½ are subject to a 10% penalty fee, and all withdrawals may be subject to income taxes.
Inflation, unexpected expenses, once-in-a-lifetime travel opportunities … Predicting the unpredictable is impossible. That’s why it may be prudent to have a certain amount of your nest egg in investment products.
Investing involves risk, and there are no ways to guarantee that you won’t lose money, but having a certain portion of your assets in the market gives you the opportunity to build on your existing wealth. Over time, that growth potential could help you offset the effects of inflation and other factors that erode the purchasing power of your assets — assets you may be counting on to see you to and through retirement.
From stocks and bonds to mutual funds and retirement accounts, we can help you figure out where investment products might fit in your overall financial strategy.
When you change jobs or retire, there are four things you can generally do with the assets in any employer-sponsored retirement plan:
- Leave the money where it is
- Take the cash (and pay income taxes and perhaps an additional 10% federal tax if you are younger than age 59 ½)
- Transfer the money to another employer plan (if the new plan allows)
- Roll the money over into an IRA Rolling over from one qualified plan to another qualified plan allows your money to continue growing tax-deferred until you receive distributions in retirement. We can help you determine if a rollover is the right move for you.
Preserve
Protect the assets that can help you live the retirement you’ve always imagined.
How?
Diversifying your retirement assets among a variety of vehicles — including a mix of insurance products and investments, depending on what is appropriate for your situation — may offer you the best chance of meeting your retirement income goals. Anyone who invests in the market should understand it involves potential risk to your principal. So, to provide some security not found in the stock market, you may want to include some insurance products in your financial strategy. These products, such as annuities, can provide supplemental income throughout retirement and protect your money from declines due to stock market losses.
If helping loved ones maintain a standard of living and avoid financial hardships after your passing is a priority for you, life insurance products can help. A general rule is that you may want to seek coverage between five and seven times your gross annual income. Policies generally can be placed into one of two categories: term and permanent.
Term insurance generally provides coverage for a specified period of time and pays out a specified amount of coverage to your beneficiaries only if you die within that time period. A permanent insurance policy, on the other hand, will stay permanently in effect for the rest of your life, as long as premiums continue to be paid.
Having a solid strategy in place for how you will pay taxes on your retirement income can be an important component to living on a fixed income and avoiding surprises come tax time.
Investing in or purchasing a tax-deferred vehicle means your money can compound interest for years, without paying current income taxes, potentially allowing it to earn interest at a faster rate. Tax-deferred vehicles only allow you to defer paying income taxes until the money is withdrawn — presumably during retirement, when you may be in a lower tax bracket. However, few financial vehicles avoid taxes altogether.
Because tax-deferred vehicles are generally designed to help individuals work toward specific long-term goals, there may be restrictions on when money can be withdrawn without penalty. Early withdrawals may be subject to charges and fees. Withdrawals before age 59 ½ may be subject to an additional 10% federal tax.
Our firm is not permitted to offer, and no statement contained herein shall constitute, tax or legal advice. You should consult a legal or tax professional on any such matters.
Does your retirement income strategy account for the cost of long-term care, should you need it? Would you be prepared for twice the expense as a married couple?
Considering that you could have to reduce your financial means before Medicaid will pay for long-term care and neither your employer group health insurance nor major medical insurance will cover long-term care, you may want to consider planning ahead for these potential expenses.
We can help evaluate your situation and determine what kinds of products could fit into a comprehensive long-term care strategy suited to your needs and circumstances.
Give
Provide for the people and causes you care about the most.
How?
IRA accounts have become one of the largest types of assets inherited by loved ones. If you don’t anticipate needing your IRA money in retirement, you may wish to consider a legacy planning strategy that potentially reduces taxes and increases the payout your beneficiaries will receive upon your death.
We can help you evaluate your financial situation to determine if IRA legacy planning could help you, and we can work with attorneys and tax professionals to help you meet your goal of structuring a long-lasting inheritance for your loved ones.
Our firm is not permitted to offer, and no statement contained herein shall constitute, tax or legal advice. You should consult a legal or tax professional on any such matters.
We can also refer you to professionals who provide the following services:
Trusts
Probate
Charitable Giving
Estate Planning
Tax Planning
All investments are subject to risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss in periods of declining values. Any statements referring to grow your income are not a guarantee or prediction of future performance. Any references to protection benefits, guarantees or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investment products. Insurance and annuity product guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Neither the firm nor its agents or representatives may give tax or legal advice. Individuals should consult with a qualified tax professional for guidance before making any purchasing decisions.
Insurance products are offered through the insurance business Capehart Financial. Capehart Financial is also an Investment Advisory practice that offers products and services through AE Wealth Management, LLC (AEWM), a Registered Investment Adviser. The AEWM does not offer insurance products. The insurance products offered by Capehart Financial are not subject to Investment Advisor requirements. AEWM and Capehart Financial are not affiliated companies.
Ready to Take The Next Step?
For more information about any of our products and services, schedule a meeting today or register to attend a seminar.
