The 8 Roles of a Financial Advisor

Financial Advisors are guardians of financial wellness and have a vested interest in seeing your retirement savings grow. Advisors specialize in different areas of finance, but for retirement planners, we offer our clients the following services.

In an age where pensions are no longer available at most companies, individuals need a retirement plan designed for them. One size does not fit all when it comes to retirement, and an experienced advisor can guide you to the proper allocations and investments based on your age, experience, risk appetite and retirement goals.

While volatility will come and go, it’s important to have someone monitoring your investments and keeping an eye on your portfolio holdings, contributions and risk/return metrics. If your financial advisor has been through multiple financial crises, they will have experience in handling portfolio investments and reading market signals in times of market turbulence. Always feel free to reach out to your advisor to discuss any concerns you have about market volatility or your portfolio holdings – that’s part of the service they offer you as your financial advisor.

You won’t realize how much paperwork is involved in setting up a 401(k), rolling over an IRA, or opening up a Defined Benefit plan until you are in the midst of that process. Understand there is a lot of behind the scenes work for your financial advisor to make the process as convenient as possible.

If you have a financial advisor, you will likely experience a quarterly or annual review where your financial advisor sits down with you and reviews all of your portfolio holdings, what worked, what didn’t, and what he or she advises going forward. These reviews are critical to measuring your financial wellness and helping you determine whether you are still on track with your retirement plans. Without this check-in, you may be invested in holdings that no longer suit your risk appetite for various reasons. Your advisor will tell you what to hold, watch, or sell in order to achieve your financial goals.

Your financial advisor should help form strategies where you can transform taxable income to nontaxable income. Tax planning is a year-round exercise, and proper diligence with your advisor and CPA will ensure you are prepared come tax time. You can also work with your advisor and CPA to utilize tax-advantaged retirement accounts to the max. Remember: the more money you save, the better off you’ll be in retirement and meeting your financial goals!

No matter how large or small, everyone has an estate, and you can’t take it with you when life is over. It’s comprised of everything you own – your car, home, real estate, bank accounts, investments, life insurance, and personal possessions. At McClure Wealth, we partner with some of the best estate planners to provide you with a comprehensive plan in advance that gives instructions for what to do with your possessions after you pass away.

Many people have experienced the pain of watching someone close to them fall victim to Alzheimer’s or Dementia and have their quality of life deteriorate due to the high cost of care associated with these age-related diseases. Unlike traditional medical insurance, long-term care is designed to cover services including personal and custodial care. Theses policies reimburse policyholders a daily amount for services to assist them with daily activities like bathing, dressing, or eating. While this is a difficult conversation to have with loved ones, it can be a lifesaver should these services ever be needed. A good financial advisor will be well-versed in Long-Term Care and be able to provide you with advice on whether it’s a good option for your family.

This may be the most valuable service we offer to clients. Financial coaching is often overlooked by advisors who only focus on portfolio construction. We take the time to sit down with each of our clients individually and understand their financial education, current income, and long-term goals. Emotional decisions made at market tops or bottoms can affect future outcomes -this is why we also help guide our clients through volatile times. Sometimes we find clients have attitudes about their finances that prevent them from being successful savers so we coach and share strategies that help them save money and think about growing their money, instead of spending it.