Insurance risk management plans for the unexpected
When the unexpected happens, it is comforting to know you are prepared. Our team advises you on which insurance risk management strategies can best meet your needs by reviewing your current insurance policies and making sure the coverage meets your current and future needs. These strategies are meant to round out your financial plan to ensure your assets are protected.
Our team of wealth management advisors help you understand insurance risk management strategies and demonstrate how they help protect you, your family, and your legacy. We also help you learn how insurance risk management can help shield your portfolio from market risk and increase your wealth. Our goal is to ensure you are financially prepared for whatever life hands you. We aim to provide you with expertise in insurance risk management, so you can confidently make the right decisions for you and your family.
How we help you get there
Personal Planning:
- Life Insurance
- Disability Income Insurance
- Long-Term Care Insurance
- Annuity Acquisition and Review (Immediate, Fixed, Variable, Indexed)
- Charitable Gift Planning
- Estate Planning
Business Planning:
- Buy/Sell Agreement Review and Financing
- Key Person Insurance Acquisition and Review
- Split Dollar/Executive Bonus Planning
- Deferred Compensation Planning
- Salary Continuation Planning
Boulay’s wealth management advisors equip you with the proper tools, education and insurance risk management strategies for weathering the unpredictable in life and business. You cannot predict market conditions, tax legislation, health, personal or professional liability. However, your insurance risk management advisor can help you manage the risks associated with these hardships and properly safeguard your retirement plan.
Our deep industry knowledge allows us to simplify the complex landscape of insurance to best meet your needs. Considering your overall personal financial plan, we ensure your insurance risk management strategy helps meet your financial objectives and lifestyle goals.
start your success journey
Boulay’s WealthNAV™ Experience takes a step-by-step approach, guiding you through life’s journey. We explore what you value—your interests, hopes and goals to develop a personalized wealth and tax strategy plan. With ongoing evaluation, we help you visualize where you want to be in the future, helping you create clarity and an enduring legacy that passes on your values and wealth. We are committed to giving you the absolute confidence to make the best decisions and the peace of mind to know they are right with the expertise of our wealth management advisors.
Wealth Management Team
Get a Review of your Existing Insurance Strategies
Boulay’s Wealth Management Advisors help guide business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, and wealthy families with solutions for managing personal and business obstacles. If you are ready to move forward with our insurance risk management services, contact us today.
Insurance FAQs
We use insurance as part of our clients’ broader financial plans for risk management, estate planning, tax planning and investment strategies. We specialize in life insurance trusts, long-term care, disability, and other forms of insurance. While tailored to suit individual client needs, our insurance services typically include:
A review of your current policies and coverage and an assessment of the risks you face
Advice on which policies will ensure the best coverage to meet current and future needs
Guidance on how insurance can be used for tax and estate planning
Continuous monitoring of your coverage to ensure protection as your needs change
Tools and education to simplify the complex insurance landscape
Personal insurance planning
Business insurance planning
We pride ourselves in our comprehensive approach, allowing you to utilize insurance as a strategic tool to meet your overall financial goals and serve your long-term needs. As unbiased yet deeply experienced advisors, we help you assess where you’re at, anticipate your future concerns, and create an insurance strategy that evolves with you through every stage of life.
Above all else, insurance is a precautionary investment that shelters you and your loved ones from significant financial loss. When utilized strategically, insurance can also help you pay off debts and other expenses, minimize your taxes, and provide peace of mind.
Insurance can be purchased for your property, home, health, employment, and many other areas of your life. When you purchase insurance, you are paying for the insurance provider to share in the financial burden of your risks. If a damaging event does occur that is covered by insurance, the financial savings can be significant.
Partnering with a professional wealth management advisor for your insurance planning needs can help you make more informed decisions for what and how to insure, depending on your needs and goals.
Every client has different insurance needs tied to their unique circumstances, age, stage of life, health, family structure, economic status, assets, and many other factors. In general, most adults with a career and children should consider some form of life insurance, as it provides financial protection for your loved ones should something happen to you during your working years. However, determining the right type of life insurance (term or permanent; whole, variable, universal) is yet another decision to be made.
As you compare different policies and decide how much and what type of coverage to purchase, here are some factors to consider:
Your annual income, including salary and bonuses
Other significant assets, like shares in a small business
Health insurance and other benefits from your employer, that would need to be paid for after your death
The number of working years you have left before retirement
Debts that your estate would be responsible for after you’re gone
Whether you want to pass an inheritance to your heirs
Whether you want to help cover costs of college tuition, weddings and other major life events for your loved ones after you’ve passed
The cost of your final expenses and disposition
Other significant financial obligations you may want insurance to cover
Ultimately, the best coverage amount is one that provides peace of mind that your family will be taken care of, even if you’re not around to provide for them. With so many specific factors to consider, determining the right coverage can be complicated; so, it’s best to consult with a professional who can simplify the decision. By reviewing your entire financial picture and making recommendations for where insurance should be factored in, we help you determine the coverage that’s best for you.
The primary purpose of life insurance is to protect your loved ones from potentially devastating financial losses that could occur if something were to happen to you. However, when utilized strategically, life insurance can also provide valuable opportunities for tax savings.
First, while most financial vehicles create taxable income, such as retirement plans, a life insurance policy’s death benefit is typically paid out income-tax free to your beneficiaries. Life insurance policy payouts can be sizable, so avoiding taxes on the death benefit is a significant advantage.
Along with the tax-free death benefit, permanent life insurance builds up potential cash value over time. This is because a portion of the premiums you pay goes into a cash value account that accumulates interest and earnings on a tax-deferred basis. If you borrow money from the cash value of your policy, you only pay taxes on any amount above the “cost basis”—the amount you’ve paid into the policy through premiums.
A word of caution, however—borrowing from the cash value of a life insurance policy reduces its value and death benefit and increases the chance the policy will lapse. If your policy lapses with an outstanding loan in excess of the cost basis, it will be taxable.
Life insurance plays an important role in estate planning, to help with the management and distribution of your assets after your death. Within estate planning, life insurance is often used for:
Final expenses: Life insurance proceeds can be used to help your loved ones cover funeral expenses, debts, final income taxes and other financial obligations, without having to tap into estate resources or assets.
Estate taxes: Inheritance and estate taxes can be significant, and the tax-free life insurance death benefit can be used to help offset these costs for beneficiaries.
Estate equalization: Estates often have multiple heirs. Life insurance proceeds can be used to equalize the inheritance, so all loved ones are compensated equally.
Business ownership: For business owners, life insurance is often used to fund buy-sell agreements, which outline how a business partner’s share in the business should be sold or transferred to other stakeholders.
Special purposes: Life insurance proceeds can be reserved for a specific purpose—such as spousal or child support, or to support an aging adult or a child with special needs. These types of directed purposes are often handled by establishing a trust.
A life insurance policy is considered an asset, meaning the policy’s death benefit proceeds are included within your estate after your death. If your estate, including the life insurance proceeds, exceeds the federal exemption limit, your death benefit could potentially be subject to an estate tax. However, if you placed your life insurance in an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT), the death benefit proceeds would not be included in your estate and would not be taxable.
An ILIT is a type of trust that is designed to facilitate ownership of one or more life insurance policies. If structured and managed properly, the life insurance death benefits received by the ILIT’s beneficiaries will not be subject to income tax or estate tax upon the death of the insured. This is a significant advantage for ILIT beneficiaries, who can use these tax-free proceeds to pay for estate taxes on other assets of the deceased. Without the burden of estate tax, the beneficiaries can receive the full value of the assets outside the trust.
ILITs are used in estate planning to help individuals, families and business owners achieve a wide range of goals. Beyond tax benefits, ILITs can be used to maximize control and specify how the death benefits are to be used, to provide income for the insured’s spouse without increasing the spouse’s estate, and more.
As you move through different stages of life, your insurance needs and priorities change with you. So, it’s important to check in periodically, to ensure that you, your family and your assets are still adequately protected.
As a general rule, your insurance strategy should be reviewed as often as your financial plan. Similarly, you’ll want to reassess your insurance coverage whenever you make a major purchase or experience a significant life change (marriage, buying a home, childbirth, receiving an inheritance, etc.).
As our clients’ life insurance planning partner, we closely monitor our clients’ plans to ensure their coverage adapts to their changing needs, to help them achieve their long-term goals.
Insurance risk management is the process of identifying and assessing your risks and assets, reviewing your existing coverage, and developing a plan that treats the identified risks while optimizing your coverage. It is just one of the many areas in which insurance can be used within your overall financial planning.
Boulay’s insurance risk management services are provided to round out your financial plan and ensure your assets are protected. Although you can’t completely eliminate the risks you face, incorporating insurance risk management as a part of your financial plan can help you minimize the effects of risk and reduce the role it plays in your financial future.
To get answers to any questions that are not on this list, or to schedule a meeting and learn more about Boulay’s insurance planning services, connect with us today.
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