Here at the Asset Protection Society (APS™)we stress the importance of protecting ALL of your assets.  Every estate plan should include asset protection; without it, even the “best” estate and financial plan can be rendered meaningless.

 

There are many ways to protect assets.  You can look to state or Federal Statutes or you can take “action” by creating structures such as Domestic LLCs, International LLCs, or Offshore Asset Protection Trusts.

 

At some point in their lives most people will have, as a wealth building tool, an IRA or a “roll over” IRA used when retiring and rolling money from an employer.

 

Many people are increasingly using annuities (specifically Fixed Indexed Annuities) as wealth building tools (especially in light of the new products in the market like the 7% guaranteed return FIA (accumulation value) with a 6.5% guaranteed income benefit for a 75 year old.  To read about this annuity, please click here.

 

The use of cash value life insurance as a wealth building tool is also becoming more popular due to the fact that once funded the money can grow tax-free and can be removed tax-free in retirement (without age 59 ½ age issues). This is the subject of Roccy DeFrancesco’s new book The Home Equity Management Guidebook: How to Achieve Maximum Wealth with Maximum Security. To read about this book, please click here.

 

What concerns many of the Members and Rated Members of the APS™ is that in many states neither IRAs, annuities nor cash value life insurance is protected from creditors.

 

Think about it.  Do you live in one of the states where your or your clients’ IRA, annuity and/or cash value life insurance is NOT protected from creditors?

 

If you are an advisor you should know whether your state protects those assets or not.

 

Collectively, there are billions of dollars in such wealth building tools that are NOT protected by state or federal statute from creditors.

 

What does that mean?  It means a lot of people need to act to protect some, if not all, of their most valuable wealth building assets.

 

The first hurdle advisors need to get over is to determine if any of these assets are protected from creditors in their respective states.

 

FREE 50-State Exemption Chart

 

In an effort to further the goal of helping everyone become asset protected, the APS™ has compiled a downloadable summary so you may determine for yourself specifically what assets are and are not protected in each state.

 

If you would like a FREE copy of this State summary, please click here.

 

In the next newsletter, those who are interested (and I suppose that will be determined if you live in a state that does not protect IRAs, annuities and/or life insurance) will learn how to protect these very valuable assets through simple structures.