Financial Planning Association Furthers Pro Bono Platform

Pro bono financial planning is essential to elevating the profession. At the same time, people living in underserved communities benefit from financial guidance. A feature of a bonafide profession is the ability to offer assistance to those in need. In the case of professionals in financial planning, the Financial Planning Association (FPA) believes that providing pro bono work is an important part of establishing a recognized profession. FPA delivers one-on-one pro bono financial planning services to those who live in at-risk and underserved communities.

In 2021, the FPA Pro Bono Program served over 5,700 individuals with 960 volunteer financial planners who contributed 17,407 hours, an 18 percent increase from 2020. The program connects individuals and families in the abovementioned communities to provide them with much-needed support. Since its inception in 2001, the program has assisted 11,277 families and individuals who are underserved and at-risk.

Before the pandemic, the FPA Pro Bono Program delivered its assistance through one-on-one meetings. The program maintained its ability to assist these populations because it shifted from an in-person format to a virtual one. In doing so, it opened the program to a larger audience.

In addition to providing pro bono work for individuals and families in at-risk and underserved communities, the organization also connected with other organizations to carry out this mission. Some organizations it partnered with include the Financial Planning for Cancer Program and the Foundation for Financial Planning and Family Reach. Collaborating with these organizations, the FPA matched 89 financial services planners with 191 families. The organization also partnered with Homes for Our Troops to connect 79 financial planners with volunteers, 143 veterans, and their families.

The FPA also recognized chapters that succeeded in helping these populations with financial planning. In November 2022, the FPA announced that it and the Foundation for Financial Planning (FFP) recognized the FPA of Dallas/Fort Worth and the FPA of Southwest Florida. The two chapters received the Power of Financial Planning Award, which applauds chapters that deliver pro bono services under the auspices of transforming the profession by elevating others.

The award looked at organizations that offered pro bono work between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. According to the November 2022 press release, these two chapters have made financial planning accessible to people in these communities, making them worthy of this accolade.

The FPA of Dallas/Fort Worth received honors as the large chapter recipient. In carrying out its pro bono platform, this chapter allowed members to participate in multiple pro bono events where many community members served. It also promoted pro bono work within the community through activities such as the Pro Bono Partner Spotlight at chapter meetings. Widows and widowers in need of financial planning were the focus of this community.

Additionally, the FPA of Southwest Florida was honored as the small chapter recipient. For its size, the chapter experienced strong results. Some of the organization’s activities included partnering with area organizations (non-profits) and students majoring in finance. The organization also partnered with Grace Place for Children & Families in providing workshops to families who live in low-income communities.

An Overview of Asset Protection Insurance

Asset protection is a broad term that covers strategies, techniques, and laws that protect assets against creditors that attempt to seize them legally. Asset protection insurance protects individuals and businesses vulnerable to catastrophic lawsuits that could jeopardize their fortunes or assets. It protects assets when a legally rendered judgment exceeds your existing general insurance limits.

At its very essence, insurance is a risk transfer vehicle. For a fee, you shift the risk of something happening to the insurer. However, if the risk comes to pass, your insurance company is held liable, not you as an individual. This makes it imperative for business owners to have comprehensive liability insurance and asset protection insurance.

Creating a comprehensive asset protection plan should involve every aspect of your business if you are a business owner. An asset protection plan aims to safeguard your assets within the business’s operational framework. Where appropriate, protecting your business through asset protection insurance is encouraged and allowed as long as you employ honest legal entities. You may want to consider engaging the services of an asset-protection advisor or attorney to help you develop an asset-protection plan.

Asset insurance can include several policies, including homeowners insurance, renters insurance, and earthquake and flood insurance. Your assets are usually covered under your renters’ or homeowners’ policy. Personal property insurance, however, doesn’t cover assets of very high value. You may need to buy an additional policy known as a “rider.”

Typically, the more liquid assets you own, the higher the risk of losing them if they are not covered by asset protection insurance. At a personal level, if you have accumulated vast wealth or are a high-net-worth individual, you could become the target of a lawsuit, hence the need for asset protection insurance.

However, many types of assets may be exempt from creditor claims. The homestead exemption, for example, protects your house from forced home sales to recover a business debt. Therefore, as you seek asset protection insurance, consider the asset types that can be included or protected against creditor claims or seized in case of a business lawsuit.

Asset protection insurance ensures that you are still covered if a particular claim against you or your business is not adequately covered by standard insurance. When you have asset protection insurance, even if a specific claim exceeds your policy limit, there will still be a settlement option within the policy limits to avoid the risk of full litigation or the court process.

Another option worth exploring is Captive Insurance Companies (CICs) policies. These are domestic or international insurance companies licensed to write business insurance policies and registered with the IRS. They don’t offer insurance services to the public.

Captive Insurance Companies policies provide businesses a way to insure themselves against potential loss when a traditional insurance policy cannot cover unique or special business liabilities. CIC policies tend to cover real risks and liabilities that are too costly to insure through open-market insurance options but have a low probability of occurring.

About Estate Planning

Estate planning is designating who will inherit or manage an individual’s assets in the event of their death or incapacitation. The process aims to preserve the value of houses, stocks, cars, art, pensions, jewelry, and other items for beneficiaries. The asset owners, also known as grantors, can specify how they wish their assets to be handled by the beneficiaries.

Estate plans are not only suitable for retirees and the wealthy. Anyone with an asset can implement estate planning as a long-term approach for accumulating and segregating generational wealth. Experts claim that over 90 percent of families lose most of their wealth in three generations. The first generation gathers the wealth, the second spends it, and the third grows up without seeing any of it. Individuals can avoid this situation by creating an estate plan to ensure their wealth passes across generations.

Estate planning also preserves an asset’s value for the beneficiaries. Asset transfers have fees and taxes. However, an estate plan can help minimize fees and taxes to ensure that grantors pass to their heirs as much value as possible. Estate taxes, inheritance taxes, and gift taxes are the most significant deductions that estate plans can avert.

Estate taxes apply when the asset value exceeds a specific value. Governments impose taxes on the excess amount rather than the entire asset value. Beneficiaries pay inheritance taxes after officially inheriting assets, while gifts whose value exceeds a specific dollar amount are subject to gift taxes.

An estate plan ensures that beneficiaries receive their assets quickly after the grantor’s death and avoids the possibility of lengthy court cases that opposing parties may present against the wealth distribution plan. Moreover, grantors can dictate the management of their assets during their lifetime. They can specify who will manage their property in case of an accident or illness. The plan protects the grantor’s wealth and asset distribution from exploitative relatives if the grantor cannot manage their assets.

Estate planning clearly specifies the beneficiaries of assets. If the grantor dies without such a plan, the government decides who will receive the assets. Grantors express their wishes for asset distribution with a will and an estate planning trust.

A will is a legal document with instructions on handling wealth distribution and guardianship after the grantor’s death. The grantor also chooses an executor to oversee the implementation of their intentions.

A trust is an agreement that specifies a trustee to hold a grantor’s assets and invest on behalf of the beneficiaries. Grantors can choose between irrevocable trusts, revocable trusts, asset protection trusts, and charitable trusts.

No one, including the grantor, can adjust or revise irrevocable trusts without the beneficiary’s consent. The trust offers tax shelter after the grantor transfers assets to it. The grantor can modify the terms of revocable trusts, allowing them to remove certain beneficiaries, add new ones, or change stipulations for wealth distribution. The grantor’s creditors, however, can access the portfolio using court orders.

Asset protection trusts guarantee creditors cannot access a grantor’s assets, as in revocable trusts. Grantors surrender ownership of their wealth once they transfer assets to the trust. Charitable trusts are suitable for high-net-worth grantors who wish to avert or minimize taxes. They receive a significant payout from the trust while donating a small portion to charity.

About Raymond James’ COVID Relief Efforts

Based in Beverly Hills, California, Lisa Detanna is a seasoned financial advisor and investment professional. She has held executive roles at various investment management and financial services companies throughout her three-decade career. Lisa Detanna serves as managing director and senior vice president of investments at Raymond James.

The international diversified financial services company Raymond James donated $1.5 million to support COVID-19 response in municipalities throughout the United States when COVID-19 became a national threat. In April 2021, Raymond James augmented the initial donation with additional funds, totaling $2.3 million, to expand the scope of support to include healthcare initiatives throughout the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Canada. Cedars Sinai was one of the nonprofit healthcare organizations that received donations.

Lisa Detanna was one of the recognized staff who played important roles in Raymond James’ charitable COVID relief efforts. Remarking on the development of the media, Ms. Lisa said she’s proud to be affiliated with an organization that builds on the conviction to drive a positive impact in surrounding communities. Raymond James affiliates have been giving back to communities through donations and volunteer efforts for over a decade.

Raymond James Promotes Multi-Generation Wealth through Housing

A California-based financial services professional, Lisa Detanna has over 30 years of experience providing clients with personalized investment management services. Leveraging her experience, Lisa Detanna now serves as managing director and senior vice president of investments at Raymond James.

Raymond James is a partner of Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to mitigating housing deprivation in the United States. Habitat for Humanity helps people build and improve their homes, a mission compatible with Raymond James’ vision to promote multi-generational wealth.

For this reason, Raymond James liaises with the nonprofit, providing volunteer efforts and purchasing loans to facilitate housing development and home renovation efforts. These loans are used by Habitat for Humanity to provide quality homes and no-interest housing loans to families, enabling parents to accrue meaningful assets that they can pass on to their generations.

As of the third quarter of 2022, Raymond James has purchased 342 loans for Habitat for Humanity, totaling a value of $52.27 million throughout the partnership, which spans over two decades. Raymond James’ volunteer affiliates have also dedicated over 7,000 volunteer hours to the nonprofit, helping with building homes, installing furniture and insulation, and painting, among other services.

When Is an Investor Qualified for Wealth Management Services?

A seasoned financial planner and wealth management executive, Lisa Detanna draws on more than three decades of experience in the financial services industry to serve as a managing director and senior vice president of investments with Raymond James. Prior to joining Raymond James, Lisa Detanna was the senior vice president of investment at Morgan Stanley, where she worked in the company’s private wealth management division.

Wealth management is a broad investment advisory service that focuses on managing high-value assets. Most wealth managers help affluent clients address all forms of financial-related questions, while some focus on particular areas.

There is no uniform rule requiring a minimum asset value an investor must possess to qualify for wealth management services. Firms and individual wealth managers set their own minimums. According to Bankrate.com, individuals with over $2 million worth of assets should seek wealth management services to protect and grow their assets.

Contrary to Bankrate, some experts believe that individuals with more than $750,000 worth of investable assets can manage their assets more prudently with the help of wealth managers. Unlike net worth, investable assets do not include physical assets like land, cars, and art collections. For example, an individual with $750,000 in investable assets may be worth over $1 million.

Raymond James Supports Cedar-Sinai COVID Relief

Lisa Detanna is a financial services professional with a career spanning three decades. She began her career in 1989 as a member of Drexel Burnham Lambert’s capital markets group, where she created macros for contact management and deal flow tracking and gained knowledge from prominent financial industry leaders. Since 2011 Lisa Detanna has served as managing director and senior vice president of investments at wealth management firm Raymond James.

Along with Raymond James CEO Paul Reilly, Mrs. Detanna was recognized for charitable contributions from Raymond James & Associates Inc. in 2021 to support Cedars-Sinai in its quest to provide support for the marginalized residents of the community in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. The donation, which was set out as a $1.5 million contribution from Raymond James to give back to surrounding communities, was reinforced with an additional $800,000 (totaling $2.3 million) to expand the scope of the endeavor. The additional fund was earmarked for healthcare initiatives and relief throughout Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

“I’m proud to be affiliated with a company that believes as firmly as I do that helping one another is what makes any community one worth living in.” Lisa said. Lisa joined Raymond James in 2011.

What is Multigenerational Wealth Planning?

An alumnus of the University of California, Lisa Detanna is a seasoned wealth management professional with expertise in a variety of areas, including tax planning, estate and gift planning, and investment management. Currently Lisa Detanna serves as managing director and senior vice president of investments at Raymond James, where she prepares heirs to manage wealth effectively through the firm’s multi-generational planning services.

Multigenerational wealth planning involves managing how wealth is transferred to younger family members when the preceding generation takes a backseat in family wealth management matters. Many financial advisors are helping clients navigate through the intricacies of the puzzling nature of multigenerational wealth planning by providing clients with all the help they need to make informed decisions.

Multigenerational wealth planning spawns from the prudence of clients. It is the dream of many clients to ensure that the wealth they have worked hard to generate is eventually doled out among their children. Effective multigenerational wealth planning ensures intergenerational stability.

Tips for Preparing Heirs for Successful Wealth Transfer

Wealth transfer may seem like a straightforward process, but it poses a significant challenge in practice as the heirs need to be prepared correctly to prevent mismanagement of the wealth and other problems. You can, however, check these challenges with some effective tips.
One way of preparing heirs for their inheritance is investing in their education. As a business person or investor looking to build generational wealth, you must also look to invest in your children’s education and educate them in your way. To successfully pass wealth and inheritance to the next generation and ensure continuity, you must understand the importance of raising children who can manage wealth. Attending the best elementary, high school, and college does not automatically guarantee financial responsibility and literacy. However, it is an essential factor and could prove pivotal in the future as they get to learn crucial theories about wealth and finance.
As a parent, you can also educate your children by having conversations with them about your financial status, letting them in on the state of things, and understanding their priorities and things they’re interested in, as it could shape how they use their inheritance. Be sure to help them make any adjustments to their plans if needed. You must encourage them to ask pertinent questions about money, educate them on the differences between wants and needs, effective secrets to earning, how to live on a budget even if they have sufficient resources, and the essence of saving.
Also, as part of education, teach them the importance of lending sensibly and writing off insignificant debts. As inheritors of a large fortune, they are prone to meeting sycophants, flatterers, and scheming people. It would help if you taught them to be wary of such people. While it is essential to ensure your beneficiaries pursue college degrees, the knowledge gained is mostly theoretical compared to what they get from you, consisting of many years of practical experience.
Preparing the next generation for inheritance isn’t a small task as there is usually so much at stake. Therefore you can enlist the help of professionals like wealth advisors, financial planners, or advisors. In fact, most affluent families use the service of such professionals when building and transferring their wealth. Professionals like these can develop long-term plans to help the next generation succeed. They can also provide advice on gifting, philanthropy, or creating a family foundation.
Another essential way to prepare your children for wealth is to determine your family’s values and mission, as they are crucial to its legacy. A mission statement clarifies the family’s goal, purpose, and standard. Ideally, all family members should be part of articulating these values. They should also be happy and proud to abide by these values.
For example, part of your family’s value might be to give back to society, encourage environmental sustainability and animal rights, or pursue medical breakthroughs. By establishing such family values, the next generation becomes more aligned with the path to follow when they assume control of the family’s resources.
In addition to having a family legacy, it is essential to build trust and communication within the family, especially between your children or other potential beneficiaries. It is common for inheritors or siblings to abandon their pursuits to focus on their inheritance, leading to fights and distrust. One effective way to avoid such occurrences is by holding regular family meetings to discuss the family’s resources. Such sessions could help prevent misunderstandings and suspicions among family members.

A Review of the Need for Financial Literacy

Financial literacy is the ability to comprehend financial concepts such as saving, investing, credit, and debt management so that you can make financially responsible decisions and develop a sense of financial well-being and confidence. According to the United States Treasury’s National Strategy for Financial Literacy, financial literacy is essential to unlocking economic opportunities and fueling a robust, resilient economy. However, approximately 66 percent of the American population is deemed financially illiterate, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Moreover, research conducted by the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) and the FINRA Foundation noted that many Americans are stressed and anxious about their finances. Focus group sessions in late 2020 supplemented findings from the 2018 National Financial Capability Study and revealed that financial stress and anxiety were more prevalent in women, younger persons, and those with limited financial knowledge.

For the most part, previous generations relied on workplace pension plans to support their retirement. The financial burden of these well-managed pension funds was passed on to employers or governments. Consumers typically had little or no knowledge of the decisions that went into their pension. Today, pensions are increasingly less common. Employees are given the option of participating in 403(b) or 401(k) plans, determining how much to contribute and how to invest the funds by themselves.

Similarly, for previous generations, Social Security provided a significant source of retirement income, but today’s benefits are insufficient for many people. Hence, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund could be empty by 2033. There are other plans to shore up Social Security, but the uncertainty only emphasizes the importance of individuals saving and planning effectively for their retirement years.

The issues above prove how financial literacy significantly affects families in managing their budgets, purchasing a home, supporting their children’s education, and maintaining a retirement income. It gives individuals a sense of control over their finances while allowing them to use money as a guide to making decisions that will improve their quality of life. As a result, financially literate consumers have a better chance of avoiding and dealing with financial difficulties. They can keep a tight check on bank and credit card accounts to spot potential fraud as soon as possible.

While some have argued that children should not be taught financial literacy until later, most Americans believe that the government should enact laws to equip schools to teach financial literacy. Among the preceding demography, about 77 percent of them think that elected officials should champion the course of financial literacy in schools. In comparison, 67 percent will elect political candidates whose campaign promises include teaching financial literacy in the public-school curriculum.

Some school systems are beginning to include financial education into the classroom and curriculum. However, the process has been highly gradual and slow, leaving many Americans with little to no formal financial education. Because people must comprehend basic financial concepts such as checkbook balancing and creditworthiness, finance is a lifelong skill everyone needs to acquire.