AEGIS Financial

Wealth Transfer – Is Your Family Ready?

We are amid one of the largest wealth transfers in generations. It is important to have your estate planning documents in place and to make sure those documents stay current. This helps your family understand your wishes and direct them to be good stewards of the family wealth. At AEGIS Financial, we work with our client to prepare the next generation for an upcoming inheritance. Each of the following are important steps to consider when creating a wealth transfer plan.

Conduct Family Meetings

It is never too early or too late to begin a dialogue with your family regarding death and inheritance.  While some may believe this conversation to be uncomfortable, these meetings can create a bonding experience between generations, providing financial education, life skills and the understanding of a parent’s or grandparent’s morals, values and wishes. We help our clients, their families and beneficiaries to cover topics such as financial planning, college funding, taxes, retirement planning, charitable giving, wealth transfer, and many others. 

Teach Basic Financial Literacy Skills

It is important for families to instill financial values prior to receiving an inheritance.  As professionals, we assist our clients with helping those heirs understand the significance of financial literacy. The life skills we discuss include:

• Importance of an emergency fund
• How to create a budget and live within those means
• Wise use of credit
• Protecting assets
• Prudent saving and investing
• Charitable giving
• Investing in yourself and knowing your worth

At AEGIS Financial, we have financial programs for every investor. We have many four generation families that we serve. 

Connect With Your Tax Professional and Wealth Management Team to Protect Your Wealth

We encourage clients to bring their heirs and/or other beneficiaries along to meetings to understand that they have trusted professionals to assist with financial decisions. Some benefits from including additional family members include:

1. Learn how to discuss goals and concerns.
2. Appreciate the benefits of working with a wealth management team during all of life’s opportunities and challenges.
3. Understand client responsibilities when working with a wealth management team.
4. Allow heirs to participate and/or make decisions in some aspects of generational wealth, if you choose.

Our team will walk you and your heirs through the entire financial process to ensure we address asset protection from a tax and financial standpoint.

Sharing the Different Wealth Transfer Strategies

Bringing heirs to meetings with the wealth management team assists clients with communicating how they may receive their inheritance. Some of these conversations include:

1. How assets are divided between each beneficiary.
2. The creation of a trust to protect an inheritance for the long term.
3. Gifting to family members over time while you are still alive.
4. Planning to enjoy the wealth together by using it for family vacations, helping fund a child’s education, etc.

A Quick Note on Charitable Giving

If giving is important to you and your family, share these goals with your heirs, so they can continue to use your family’s wealth to help others. By communicating these wishes and having them participate with your giving, you will continue to keep your legacy alive for many years to come. Some families have created a family foundation with mission statements to communicate their wishes for future charitable giving.

These tools and strategies have proven to be very successful for our clients and allows future generations to be great stewards of their loved one’s wealth, as well as educating the next generation on the value of money and how to use it wisely. If you have not considered a family meeting, we encourage you seriously consider. Please be sure to alert your AEGIS Relationship Manager if you have someone who will be attending a future meeting, so your management team is prepared.

We can help regardless of the value of your accounts or the complexity of your estate. If you are interested in having our team assist you and your loved ones with any or all the above concepts, please let us know and we would be happy to meet with you and your family’s next generation.