Vital to any “Rating” system of professional advisors is a “Standard of Care” that must be upheld when giving advice to clients.

 

The foundation for the “Standard of Care” put forth by the APS™ is the following fundamental statement:

 

“No financial, estate, legal, accounting, etc. plan can be complete without incorporating asset protection planning.”

 

Therefore, the Standard of Care put forth by the APS™ is:

 

“Rated” advisors shall incorporate asset protection planning into the advice given to all clients.”

 

A failure to do so shall constitute a breach of the “Standard of Care” and subject a “Rated” advisor to disciplinary action or revocation of their rating.   To help “Rated” advisors help their clients and comply with the SOC required by the Society, the Society has created what it believes is a comprehensive checklist a “Rated” advisor should go through with each and every client.  To review this checklist, please click here.

 

The APS™ believes that the following list of advisors would breach the above standard of care if they help a client in their particular fields and do not incorporate asset protection planning.

 

–Legal (estate planning as well as corporate work)

–Financial planning (including advice on life insurance, annuities, long-term care insurance, stock or mutual funds)

–Accounting (personal and business)

–Mortgage and real estate planning (real estate and mortgage brokers)

 

Asset protection planning has become a “core” issues when helping clients with any kind of plan that deals with their wealth.  With negligence suits running wild against average Americans, it is imperative for advisors to be well versed in at least the basics of asset protection planning.

 

Advisors are not required to become “experts” in asset protection planning in order to meet a standard of care.  However, core domestic asset protection planning is not a difficult topic to learn and the burden of learning the subject matter is small.

 

To read simple examples of a typical breach of the APS™ standard of care, please click on each of the specialties outlined above.

 

For questions regarding the Standard of Care “Rated” advisors are held to, please e-mail Email Us.