At a glance All the money in the world can mean little if health impedes the enjoyment & quality of life. But knowing assets are performing efficiently is also an integral part of happiness. And properly protecting one’s health and wealth can only bring additional peace of mind. In strict confidentiality, Elder-Advisor works closely with your Medical, Financial and Legal Team professionals to make certain everything is in order. Your Doctors certainly want to do the best they can, but unfortunately modern medicine is no longer driven exclusively by the MD. Elder-Advisor takes pride in understanding this and works as your advocate to raise the level of care to the highest possible level.

Chances are you have been with your Financial Advisors for many years. Your relationship may transcend simple advice and services. Yet it is important for an Estate Plan, tax strategy and Financial Plan to all coincide. They are interdependent. Elder-Advisor helps your Accountant be aware of what your portfolio and fund Managers are strategizing as well as helping your Estate Planning Attorney to complement the overall long term strategy. And there are other elements such as Life Insurance, family businesses and charities that need to be considered in this macro environment. In an estate nothing happens in a vacuum. A medical decision might affect everything else and visa versa. Of course one can always choose to ignore such details but there is a price.

In Depth Record Keeping: Elder-Advisor pours over everything. Your Estate Planning Attorney will strongly recommend you take certain protective record keeping measures. Typically this can take months of persistent work. Understandably it is the area most people neglect. And it is vital. Point in the right direction and Elder-Advisor can do it for you. A small laundry list of examples: Documenting health profiles so that future doctor appointments are unfailingly accurate – once during a pre-op profile, my Mother neglected to mention her pacemaker…good thing I was there. Conferencing with health insurance companies and persisting to make certain claims are handled fairly - typically their first answer is “No”. Many people just give up. First going through files in discovery, then following up with letters and phone calls to confirm accuracy and finally, organizing it all for you and your Professionals to analyze.

Ensuring assets are inventoried and properly titled – it is amazing how often there are Trust, Probate and tax problems. Preparation delivers answers to questions like these: Where is everything? What is the basis of the asset? Where are the receipts, the bills, the checkbooks and credit card statements? Unearthing value in long forgotten investments- For example, I love finding value in old Limited Partnerships. Sometimes the General Partners simply lost track of you! Laboring to prepare Trusts and Wills for legal professionals to review – the profusion of Trusts and amendments quickly becomes mind boggling to the uninitiated. And often confuse experts as well. Elder-Advisor accepts no fees or commissions from any person or company advising your affairs. Our allegiance is only to the elders and their family.

Health: Medical
Our modern medical system can tax even the most patient individual. Health Insurance companies, Managed Care Providers, overworked Doctors and their staffs, shifting Medicare policies, even where to get prescriptions filled, all combine to make for an interesting set of problems and solutions. All the patient wants is to be as healthy as possible; but often it seems the operative word in patient is patience. At times the medical system can seem cold and impersonal. What ought to be a simple matter requires approval, then appointments, then follow-up. Elder-Advisor has been there and knows how to get results from these essential lifesaving institutions. It is a place where firm but polite persistence and patience can yield great dividends.

Elder-Advisor also draws up a complete medical background of the elder so that Doctors can quickly review past health history, in addition to current status and care of pre-existing conditions. This can help prevent overmedication, omissions in pre-op profiling and mistakes in emergency room treatment.

For many, Health also means a stable daily routine, living in a safe and well designed domicile, as well as eating and exercising properly. Elder-Advisor does all it can to bring these issues to the forefront and provide services that enable the best quality of care available.

Finance and Law: Wealth Performance, Preservation and Protection
Regardless of the source of wealth, the responsibilities never go away. For wealth is to be respected and there are no true guarantees. The security of certainty when assets are in line with investment objectives, delivering returns commensurate with risk and providing adequate income. All while preserving wealth for future generations.

Everyone has an Estate Plan. Whether dictated by a court or guided by a Trust, when you pass away your assets will be distributed. It is only a matter of how.

Elder-Advisor’s comprehensive strategy gathers disparate asset information and then organizes it for your experts. Elder-Advisor is not going to create your Estate Plan, we do not practice law; but vital record keeping and organization is all anyone has to work with. Estate taxes are due 9 months from date of death. Even with a moderately sophisticated estate one can see why a clear, well organized record of financial and legal matters helps everyone.

Robert Stutch’s background as a Registered Representative (Series 7 and 22), numerous Insurance licenses and awards with The Equitable, his Financial and Estate Planning experiences, complemented by ongoing education at NYU, translates into a knowledgeable individual. His usefulness has high value.

The following overview provides a glimpse of Elder-Advisor’s attitude

Financial
Most people know where their assets are located and generally what they are worth. But suppose something happens to you? How would anyone else know? Elder-Advisor inventories your entire asset structure to make certain that should the unthinkable happen, there is a list for your legal advisors and executors to refer. This is also essential for tracking performance. As life changes so do investment objectives. Are your professionals aware of recent changes to your life and portfolio structure? Have you added or sold any property? Elder-Advisor can keep track.

Daily money Management
While researching your estate, Elder-Advisor carefully composes budgets of past spending patterns, current expenses and makes projections into the coming year. This profile also identifies sources of liquidity, income and costs of carrying debt. This creates a performance model for you and your financial experts to evaluate. These tools can also be of enormous help when researching income tax and estate planning techniques such as gifting and grants. Given your current needs and expenditures your professionals can evaluate which strategies are best suited to your overall estate.

Rare is the case where a catastrophic event does not have a financial impact. Elder-Advisor carefully monitors any changes in expenditures and tracks each expenditure for your CPA.

Ongoing Estate Legal Management: Getting ready to see your Estate Attorney
Every Estate, regardless of size, should have certain legal documents that facilitate a clear and cost effective path to resolving the estate. Some are familiar; some are esoteric and most are complicated in structure and language. Yet the goal remains the same- preserving assets and passing them to heirs and charities according to your wishes.

As you probably know, the Estate Tax section is one of the most complex and dynamic of all the tax code. Both State and Federal laws dictate the erosion of assets through Estate, Gift and Generation Skipping Taxes. Only a deliberate strategy of planning and monitoring can utilize every possible technique to preserve and protect the value of the estate and the receipt of assets by heirs and charities. Understandably, people find this burdensome. Simply talking about it can be a delicate subject. That is why Elder-Advisor offers assistance.

Most people of means have taken the preliminary legal steps: Wills, Trusts, Power of Attorney, Health directive, et cetera. Statistics prove the investment made in these documents significantly reduces the time and cost of administrating the estate.

But, having done the hard work years ago, many people erroneously believe the matter settled for good. Laws & Life change and busy people often have other priorities. Without updates, previously sound estate planning can be less effective.

Elder-Advisor has a solid understanding of what your Estate Attorney will need in order to get to work. There are lists and questionnaires to be completed. It can be complicated and time consuming. But this procedure may also unearth strategies that may not have seemed possible before. Because Elder-Advisor works non-competitively with your Professionals, it is in everyone’s best interest to maximize your agenda. Indeed Elder-Advisor’s usefulness has high value.

Developing and implementing an estate plan requires an Attorney that specializes in Estate Law.
Elder-Advisor does not practice Law or Financial Planning, but intelligently manages the details of the operation.

Practical Protection: An example
Often overlooked is the titling of Trust assets and Life insurance. It seems simple: proper titling is essential for avoiding probate and estate taxes. Yet people consistently neglect to move assets into the Trusts created to protect them. Elder-Advisor documents all these details to make certain things are as you want them. And we implement any changes to keep things current. Just this one small item can make a substantial difference to preserving the value of an estate. And it is but one example.

Estate planning is a very intricate and dynamic area best left to specialists. But professionals are only as effective as the quality of information provided. With the reference tools Elder-Advisor produces, overlooked avenues of Estate Planning and asset preservation can be pursued and explored. Should an advantageous strategy be discovered, Elder-Advisor can also facilitate implementation and follow through, opening possibilities that once may have seemed like too much bother. Elder-Advisor does the leg work for you.