One aspect of a successful retirement stage is that you can start to look beyond your own needs and consider ways to transition your assets for future generations or charitable contributions. While not everyone is able to leave significant assets in their estate, everyone does need to have a plan for what happens at the end of their life. At a baseline level, we work with all of our clients to make sure that all of the assets that we manage have beneficiaries listed. This ensures that at the time of the client’s passing, assets will transfer as smoothly as possible. Additionally, we work with our clients’ estate planning attorneys to reduce estate tax exposure as much as possible.

For this phase, there are many options available to clients with goals extending beyond their own lifetime. For example, we can employ gifting strategies to distribute assets to family members and charities during your lifetime. This reduces the size of the estate while also achieving goals that can assist others while you are still living. Another option is to plan for a specific bequest – an amount of money that we can carve out of your total portfolio that will have a specific purpose at the time of your passing. Whichever option you find most appropriate, it’s important that we continue to work together on these goals. Death is not a pleasant topic, but through the relationships we develop with our clients over time, we are able to take the appropriate steps to ensure that your legacy goes as planned.