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.

Download the life assurance 360 brochure

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.

1. GATHER AND CLARIFY MEDICAL INFORMATION

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.
2. PRIVATE UNDERWRITING RATING EVALUATION (PURE™)

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.
3. INSURANCE COMPANY SELECTION

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.
4. SUBMISSION ADVOCACY

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.
5. SELECTION OF OFFERS
6. EXPERT MANAGEMENT

Key to the success of this proactive approach is expert 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.

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