Our comprehensive financial plans, developed by Certified Financial Planners, ensure our clients have a solid chance of making their financial dreams become a reality.
A typical complete financial plan includes the following steps:
- Establish Financial Goals — Review and prioritize your short-term and long-term goals.
- Retirement Planning — Review your existing retirement plans and complete a retirement planning projection.
- Investments Review — Analyze your current investment portfolio and generate a model portfolio recommendation based on your risk tolerance.
- Education Planning — Run cost projections for future education costs and develop funding strategies and investment vehicles.
- Insurance Review — Review personal risk and work with your lawyers and insurance professionals to develop strategies to reduce that risk. This includes reviewing the need for life insurance, disability, long-term care and the suitability of your current liability coverage.
- Tax Planning — Explore possible tax savings strategies.
- Estate Planning — Calculate the taxable estate, determine liquidity to pay estate taxes and, in conjunction with your lawyers, develop a plan to reach wealth transfer objectives.
There are four major financial stages for most people:
- Accumulation
- Growth
- Preservation
- Distribution
In the accumulation stage, we work to identify financial goals and then guide clients through the process to make that vision a reality. Our philosophy is that our clients’ money is best invested after defining their goals. Goals identified have a greater chance of achieving success.
Once clients are on the path to financial freedom, it is of the utmost importance to preserve the wealth they are building by using risk management tools. We work to define the risk in their lives, from investment risk to the risk of losing wealth due to unexpected circumstances.
We believe that tax planning is a vital part of our clients’ investment and financial plans. Return performance should be considered on an after-tax basis and with proper planning, some taxes can be avoided.
Many of our clients are in a stage of life that they have attained their wealth accumulation goals, therefore, enjoy broader investment options. At this point capital preservation also becomes increasingly important, so we work closely with our clients to define life goals now that they have achieved financial security. With these clients, we may start exploring the meaning of money in their lives. Is the money to be preserved for the future generations, used for philanthropy or to start a new venture.
With all stages, EquiStar is committed to helping our clients define their relationships with money. Since people have different values and goals for their money, we work to tailor each financial plan so that it will be as unique as the individual.