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Insurance & Estate Planning

Protecting Your Wealth

Managing the Risk of Long-Term Care

Advances in medicine, technology and health awareness have allowed us to live longer. However, with greater longevity comes the risk of eventually needing some type of extended health care. How you prepare for that possibility directly impacts the security of your entire portfolio and can pose one of the greatest threats to your retirement income security.

As health care costs continue to rise, more and more people are wisely deciding to assign the risk of needing long term care (and the financial impact that comes along with it) to an insurance company through a hybrid life and long-term care insurance policy.

After we assess your personal situation, we can help you design a 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,
  • Provide emergency funds when you need access to liquid assets, and
  • Create a financial legacy that you can leave to your loved ones.

LIFE ASSURANCE 360™

Whether you are evaluating existing coverage or seeking new
insurance, SLS uses a unique five-step process
called Life Assurance 360™ to make certain that your policy fits your
current needs and continues to serve its intended purpose for the
duration of the policy.

By taking a comprehensive, 360° approach
to designing, implementing and managing life insurance, we believe that
the outcome produced for our clients is better than when each of these
steps is addressed in isolation…that the whole is indeed greater than
the sum of its parts.

Insurance & Estate Planning 

Navigating Policy Pricing

UNDERWRITING ADVOCACY™

A Proactive Approach to Obtaining Favorable Underwriting offers and Policy Pricing

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.

Policy Management

Enhancing Your Insurance Experience by Bridging Expectations With Results

Through our relationship with the Valmark Companies, we have access to The Policy Management Company which provides policy monitoring and management services for our clients’ in-force life insurance policies.

This is accomplished through an effective combination of technology, a dedicated team of policy management experts, and a professional process developed from Valmark’s 50+ years of experience with sophisticated life insurance policies.

Together, they form a durable bridge connecting your expectations of promised policy benefits with actual results. Our goal is to give you the assurance of ongoing policy performance while creating what we believe is a superior insurance experience. Potential advantages to both policy holders and trustees include:

  • Assurance of ongoing policy performance
  • Access to all policy information in one centralized location
  • Assurance that your insurance needs are always covered
  • Automated trust administration and documented policy performance
  • Assurance of ongoing service by a trusted third party

LIFE SETTLEMENTS

WHEN YOUR LIFE INSURANCE POLICY IS NO LONGER NEEDED

Situations may arise when you no longer need or want your life insurance policy, generally due to:

  • Changes in your planning needs (e.g., retirement income needs, changes in estate taxes, business changes, etc.) and/or;
  • Changes in the policy structure (e.g., carrier-imposed premium increases, reduced duration of coverage, and other policy performance problems)

When these situations occur, we work with you and your advisors using our Life Settlement Advocacy Program™ that first analyzes the existing policy and examining the potential for a life settlement. Based on our findings and your objectives, we provide detailed analyses and recommendations of various options that may include:

  • Allow the policy to lapse
  • Surrender the policy for cash value
  • Restructure the policy
  • Exchange for a new life policy or an annuity
  • Pursue a life settlement when a higher net value seems likely
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

Valmark Securities supervises all life settlements like a security transaction and its’ registered representatives act as brokers on the transaction and may receive a fee from the purchaser. Once a policy is transferred, the policy owner has no control over subsequent transfers and may be required to disclose additional information later. If a continued need for coverage exists, the policy owner should consider the availability, adequacy and cost of the comparable coverage. A life settlement transaction may require an extended period to complete and result in higher costs and fees due to their complexity. Policy owners considering the need for cash should consider other less costly alternatives. A life settlement may affect the insured’s ability to obtain insurance in the future and the seller’s eligibility for certain public assistance programs. When an individual decides to sell their policy, they must provide complete access to their medical history, and other personal information.

Estate Planning

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
Glencoe

1721 10th Street East
Glencoe, MN 55336

(320) 864-6166
(320) 864-5884
Mon-Thu: 8:30 AM–4:30 PM
Arlington

105 West Main Street
ArlingtonMN 55307

(507) 964-5868
(507) 964-5666

Mon-Thu: 8:30 AM–4:30 PM

Norwood

214 West Elm Street,
PO Box 664
Norwood, MN 55368

(952) 467-2407
(952) 467-2647

Mon-Thu: 8:30 AM–4:30 PM

Securities offered through Valmark Securities, Inc. Member FINRA, SIPC. Investment Advisory Services offered through Valmark Advisers, Inc. a SEC Registered Investment Advisor. 130 Springside Drive, Suite 300 Akron, Ohio 44333-2431 1-800-765-5201 SLS Certified Public Accountants is a separate entity from Valmark Securities, Inc. and Valmark Advisers, Inc.  Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board) owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, and CFP® (with plaque design) in the United States, which it authorizes use of by individuals who successfully complete CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements. ©2023 SLS // All Rights Reserved. // Check out our Advisors on FINRA Broker Check. Customer Relationship Summary Form