(612) 206-3701 info@lucerelegal.com

Four Steps You Can Take to Protect Your Money

Lucere Legal helps people protect their assets with legal planning

Most people don’t think about asset protection on a regular basis.  While most everybody is busy trying to accumulate assets, they don’t often give considered thought to the importance of protecting what they have.  A recent article on The Motley Fool investment website points out that there are a handful of things that can harm an investor more than a great return on an investment can help, and recommends that everyone take these four asset protection steps:

Get the right insurance coverage.  One of the best ways to keep your money is to shift most of the risk of an accident or unplanned event to someone else – your insurance company. Life insurance, disability insurance, auto insurance, homeowners insurance, health insurance and long-term care insurance are all ways you can protect your financial security.

Delay Social Security benefits.  One of the major benefits of Social Security is that it is one of the few revenue sources that can withstand inflation and stock market downturns.   Delaying benefits until you are at full retirement age — and up to age 70 if you can manage it – will maximize your payout and that of a surviving spouse.

Have an estate plan.   If you do it right, creating an estate plan can help you provide for your family in the most tax-advantaged way.  Using tools like trusts can minimize taxes and avoid probate so your assets will pass automatically to your heirs without getting tied up in court.  Trusts can also be structured to protect the assets you leave your family from creditors and ex-spouses. Another important aspect of estate planning is incapacity planning with powers of attorney and healthcare directives so your wishes are respected if you lose your decision making ability.

If you are a business owner, choose the right structure.  If you own a business, choosing the right business structure for personal liability protection and taxation can dramatically affect your family’s financial circumstances.

If you would like some guidance on protecting your wealth, call our office today at (612) 206-3701 or fill out our contact form to schedule a time for us to sit down and talk.

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Contact us to see how we can help you with Asset Protection for Estates,Estate Planning Reviews

You may also like . . .

Make Sure Your Real Estate Doesn’t Do You Harm

Fire, tornado, earthquake--if you are the owner of investment real estate, chances are you have already protected yourself against the monetary impact of any natural disaster. However, too many Americans remain unaware of the cost risks of lawsuits and probate court...

How to Keep Your Life Insurance Proceeds from Being Taxed

You have purchased a life insurance policy as an added protection for your loved ones, so that they can live comfortably after you are gone. Why not, then, carry that a little further by protecting that important payout from taxation, so your family can have every...

How to Protect Your Assets from Your Child’s Ex-spouse

For most parents, a child’s wedding day is one of the happiest occasions in life, especially when they love and adore that child’s spouse.  Sometimes, however, opinions change and parents become concerned about how to protect the assets they plan to leave their...

The plain-English guide for Minnesota small business owners

When it comes to business, ignorance isn't bliss; ignorance is risk.

There's a handful of legal topics that business owners should be familiar with, at least on a rudimentary level, to reduce the risk of having something horrible come out of left field.

This book is a legal guide to help you put the most common business legal issues on your radar, with enough information for you to be on the alert for when you may need to get some professional advice.

The intention in arming you with this information is so that you can proceed in business confidently and with fewer legal quagmires.

Do you have a cabin?

The first generation that buys a cabin enjoys it to the fullest and it’s a magical place where happy memories are made and families go for some much needed respite. Unfortunately, without thoughtful planning, the chances of the cabin staying a place of happiness and tranquility into successive generations is very, very slim.

If you haven’t done the planning in advance and made it legally binding, the family members (and their ex-spouses and new spouses) will have to work every detail out for themselves. If they can’t, what is likely to happen is a lawsuit called an action for partition that forces everyone to sell their interest. This lawsuit is expensive, and the costs of litigation will come out of the proceeds of the sale of the cabin, so to add insult to injury to those who wanted to keep the cabin but couldn’t afford to buy the others out, they are footing part of the legal bills in the lawsuit against them. Ouch!

It’s no wonder that family members stop speaking for years after the cabin conflict is “resolved.” You can’t make family relationships perfect, but you can take away much of the fuel for the family conflict fire. That’s what cabin planning does, and it has the nice side effect of giving you peace of mind now.

That’s why Kimberly wrote The Minnesota Cabin Planning Guide and Workbook, and you can get a free electronic copy of her book on our cabin planning website, or you can find it in many county libraries in Minnesota, or you can get it on amazon.com.

Make An Appointment>

Join Our Mailing List

Subscribe to our newsletter list to get information and resources helpful to running your business and planning and managing your personal financial affairs delivered right to your inbox.

We don’t spam and won’t share your information with anyone, at anytime, ever.

Check out our podcast

The Small Business Buzz Podcast