Insurance And Estate Planning
At Freedom Financial Planning we believe that many clients and prospective clients need a trusted advocate to guide them through the very important process of evaluating and securing the proper type and amount of insurance to protect against known potential events that can disrupt or destroy an otherwise solid financial plan. We don’t wish anyone to pay more than they need to for this protection, but we have seen the catastrophic results of not having it in place when needed.
We will help you through getting the right plan in place using the following steps.
In this step, we use our proprietary Life Assurance Design Questionnaire to educate you about your life insurance options while gathering information about your goals, preferences, and risk tolerance. Additionally, our one-page Pre-Underwriting Questionnaire helps paint a high-level picture of how your medical history may factor into the overall plan design.
Prior to submitting an application, our experienced underwriting team gathers and reviews your medical information and begins clarifying all missing or incomplete details with your physicians to present your case to the carrier(s) in the most favorable light possible. For larger, more complex cases where privacy and confidentiality are paramount, our staff underwriters and licensed physician conduct a private medical evaluation to fully assess your medical risk while protecting your identity from the Medical Information Base (MIB).
After the initial fact-finding process and underwriting assessment are complete, our underwriting and marketing teams develop product recommendations based on your goals, risk tolerance, and preferences regarding the five areas of product design: safety, flexibility, equity, certainty, and premium.
After product recommendations are developed, we create meaningful analyses of each plan and present the recommendations in a cogent format that empowers you to make informed decisions.
After you make your choice from among the recommended plans, we initiate an on-going process that monitors and measures the performance of your plan to help ensure that your benefits remain on track for the life of the policy. We regularly review the plan’s performance with you using a concise, yet thorough, policy review document.
What many people don’t realize that the single greatest impact on the price of a life insurance policy is professional management of the medical underwriting process.
Using our knowledge of how carrier underwriters, medical directors, and actuaries make decisions, we proactively position your life insurance application it its most favorable light.
We accomplish this through a proprietary informal underwriting process where we complete 90% of the underwriting BEFORE an application is submitted to an insurance company. This preliminary process enables us to pre-qualify underwriting offers from insurance companies, while protecting your Personal Health Information from the Medical Information Bureau so that your insurability remains unchanged.
As a result, we are able to deliver the best possible underwriting offers to our clients. Once received, the top offers from various companies are analyzed by our team. We match the best underwriting results to the appropriate product and optimized solution. We then discuss all of this information with you so that you can make an informed decision.
Here's How It Works
Before submitting an application, we collect all of the evidence required to render an underwriting decision so we can ensure your information is accurate. Any gaps can be clarified with your physicians before any evidence is submitted to the insurers. Also, contextual information can be added to help insurance company underwriters understand the big picture – why you are seeking insurance coverage, what you are doing to address any health issues, etc.
Most surprises in an underwriting evaluation come from the medical exam and lab work in connection with the life insurance application. Our confidential, private evaluation allows our team to review your exam and laboratory results prior to them being submitted to a carrier. These results, combined with a HIPAA-compliant confidential review of your medical records, allows us to assess your life insurance risk, address any abnormalities which may be present in the exam or lab results, and determine which carriers will have the most favorable evaluation of the application.
By proactively providing the home office underwriter with a clarified and coordinated presentation of your medical information, we remove as many surprises as possible and can usually help positively affect the evaluation of your risk.
Next, we submit your case to multiple insurance carriers using a carefully-structured methodology. This is where Underwriting Advocacy can be especially impactful in addressing the complexities of coordinating large amounts of coverage with multiple carriers.
Each carrier has a limited amount of risk it is willing to accept on a particular life. One large case submitted inappropriately to too many carriers at once, can flood the market. This can essentially block you from gaining access to higher amounts of coverage.
MEDICAL EXAMS: Although several companies may be selected at the beginning of the underwriting process, the Underwriting Advocacy process enables you to use one medical exam for all companies, avoiding the inconvenience of unnecessary or duplicate tests. The medical information can be shared with all companies in a format designed to present your case in its most favorable light.
UNDERWRITING INTERVIEWS: During the home office underwriting evaluation process, we conduct phone conferences, as needed, between your physicians and carrier underwriters so that the proper information and positioning is provided to obtain the most favorable offers possible.
After underwriting offers have been received, we consult with you and your advisors to select the best products and offers from the most appropriate insurance company or companies.
Key to the success of this proactive approach is specialized implementation by a world-class underwriting team made available through our relationship with the Valmark Companies. Our consulting team includes several former insurance company Underwriting Vice Presidents and Medical Directors, a licensed physician, and a senior staff of case management, business processing and policy service specialists. Together, they confidentially represent, clarify and coordinate the details of your application with multiple insurance companies throughout the underwriting process.
Managing The Risk Of Long Term Care
A long-term care event is one of the most devastating events that can ruin a well-constructed financial plan. Long-term care protection traditionally was if you don’t use it you lose it. Current protection allows for a return of premium in the event you don’t use it.
After we assess your personal situation, we can help you design a policy and plan individually tailored to protect your assets now and in the future for a variety of situations. These plans can help:
- Cover the costs of long-term care
- Protect your assets
- Give you piece of mind
The most important things is to have a plan, not necessarily have insurance.
Disability Insurance
While we spend a great deal of time working to succeed in our careers and businesses, few of us think about ensuring that we have a safety net to fall back on should we become disabled. A disability can have a dramatic impact on your lifestyle, your business—even your retirement.
From covering loan payments to keeping pace with business and living expenses, our customized disability insurance programs can effectively replace a portion of your earned income in the event of an accident or illness. To ensure that your coverage is tailored to your specific requirements, we work closely with you to incorporate appropriate features such as:
- Cost of living options to help your benefits keep up with inflation
- Choice of payment options, waiting periods, benefit periods, and monthly benefit amounts
- Riders that can help you customize coverage to accommodate specific needs and objectives
Preserving Wealth For Future Generations
As part of our process, we help you first focus on the big picture of what you want to see happen with your assets, family, business, and charities. We believe that prudent estate planning starts with knowing what is in the hearts of our clients. While our wealth transfer process addresses the goals of maximizing wealth to your heirs and minimizing taxes, we help you address key questions such as:
- What values are you hoping to support and what outcomes would you like to promote?
- How much is enough to accomplish these important results?
- Who is to receive the item or asset?
- How is it to be given to them?
Addressing Taxation
After we understand your underlying purpose, we then learn the hard facts about your holdings. Working in tandem with you and your other advisors, our team crafts customized solutions to help mitigate transfer taxes, while making sure the provisions in your wills and trusts match what is in your heart. Depending on your specific needs, our plans include:
- Strategies and tools to identify and project current and future State and Federal taxes
- Accelerated gifting strategies
- Life Insurance as a method to financially protect assets and survivors
ESTATE SNAPSHOT QUESTIONNAIRE SAMPLE ESTATE SNAPSHOT “AS IS” ANALYSIS SAMPLE ESTATE SNAPSHOT “RECOMMENDED” ANALYSIS