FOR PHYSICIANS

As a physician, you are well aware that people are living longer, more active lives. It makes sense to start as early as possible to plan, save, and invest for retirement. However, while most people start working in their early 20s and start saving in a 401(k) or Roth IRA in their 30s, you as a doctor may have missed out on 10 years of retirement savings, and you'll need to catch up. Even if you are still struggling to pay off your medical school loans or are wondering where the money will come from to send your own children to college, retirement planning is important. Let us help you find the ideal retirement plan so you can maintain your existing lifestyle and still have a solid nest egg for when you retire.

A well balanced financial plan considers income taxes now, taxes on investments as they grow and how taxes will affect the withdrawal of the asset. We can help you build a comprehensive financial plan that takes into account what your income taxes are now, what they will be on investments down the line, and how and at what point you will be able to withdraw those funds when you need them. Don’t shell out unnecessary taxes to the IRS when you can save that money for your kids when they need it, donate the funds to a charity of your choice or a large purchase.

Long-term wealth management starts with early management of medical school loans. We can assist you with the insight and analysis necessary to ensure wise decisions are made regarding the repayment of your loans. Our goal is to deliver best practices for managing debt in order to help fast-track improving your overall financial net worth.

Success requires not only the successful accumulation of assets, but also the protection of assets accumulated over a career. Physicians can no longer depend entirely on medical malpractice insurance to cover them personally and must start self protecting themselves and their families. We can help you protect your wealth, savings, real estate and investments, along with future income.

Aside from retirement, saving for a child’s college education is one of the biggest expenses a physician encounters. The skyrocketing cost of education makes it increasingly important to start planning for your children's education early, and to determine the best vehicles for your investment. And with college savings vehicles multiplying all the time, and changing tax laws, the landscape of college education funding can be perplexing. This is why planning now will give you the utmost in flexibility down the road.

We can’t predict the future, but we can be prepared for it. The right insurance policies can help protect you and your family against the many risks that physicians face. We work with you to help determine the insurance coverage you need – in the right amounts, for the right price. We can provide you with the professional liability insurance that will guard against errors and omissions in addition to other insurance options you may want to consider that can have negative consequences to your reputation and practice. Rest easy knowing you're covered, while maintaining superior quality of service to your patients. We deal with these common types of insurance plans:

• Long-Term Care

• Life Insurance

• Disability Insurance

• Business Overhead Insurance

Charitable giving can fulfill your legacy of helping people and organizations that are important to you. Properly designed philanthropy plans can also provide significant tax saving opportunities. Your personal and financial goals will determine the extent of any charitable giving plan and the tax benefits your plan can produce. We help clients make charitable gifts in the most tax-efficient manner.

You owe it to your practice to invest just as much work and care in retaining quality staff members, as you do hiring new ones. One way to do that is to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package. Many practices can't offer significant raises or bonuses, but what you can do is find out what is meaningful to your staff in terms of health insurance, time off and more, and then make it happen. We can help you coordinate your benefits to best meet the needs of everyone involved. This leads to a longer life span of your staff, with employees who stay with you for many years. Look to us to provide you with important insurance benefits:

• Group and Individual Health Plans

• Dental

• Vision

• 401(k)

• Employer Paid Benefits and Voluntary Benefits

• Short- and Long-Term Disability

• Life insurance

• Long-Term Care

A worker age 30 is 230 percent more likely to face an onset of disability than he or she is to die. Put another way, that workers’ family is 230 percent more likely to need benefits from a disability insurance policy than from a life insurance policy.¹ Disability is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy and foreclosure. You don’t think twice about insuring your home, car and other possessions. So why wouldn’t you protect the one thing that pays for all those things – your paycheck? That’s what disability insurance is all about – it’s insurance for your paycheck.

Musculoskeletal system and connective tissue injuries are the #1 cause of disabilities. Examples include; arthritis, back pain, spine/joint disorders, fibromytis, etc. Furthermore, most disabilities are not work-related, and therefore not covered by workers' compensations.

If you’re working and earning a paycheck, chances are, you need to protect your income. Without the right protection a lot is at stake if you become too sick or hurt to work. Disability insurance can help preserve an existing nest egg and also provide the flexibility to keep contributing to retirement savings, reducing the need to play catch up later. At Pinnacle Strategies, we focus on helping our clients protect their future income.

¹2014 CDA Long Term Disability Claims Review

Group Disability Plans - If you have employees, you can select group short-term and long-term disability policies that benefit some or all of your employees. You may choose to pay 100 percent of the premiums or you may require employees to contribute to the cost.

Individual Disability Plans - If you are self-employed or a sole proprietor, you can purchase a disability policy with options that meet your personal needs. You can choose the disability policy benefit amount, waiting period, and benefit periods, based on the premiums you can afford.

At Pinnacle Strategies establishing a disability insurance program for your business is an easy process and a simple way to provide the financial security and peace of mind that you and your employees deserve.

Do you know how much money would be coming in each month—and from where—if you were to become disabled? Consider the amount of your income you rely on each month to meet your expenses. If an accident or illness sidelines you from your practice for an extended period of time, how will you pay the bills? The main question is how does it cost you to maintain your lifestyle every month? Group disability insurance would provide some income, but not all workers have it. And even if you do, would it go far enough?

You also need to consider the income you can count on from other sources (i.e. social security, personal savings, group disability coverage). If your total income from all sources will not be enough to support you and your family, you should consider buying additional disability insurance—either through work or on your own—to make up the difference and avoid depleting your savings, education, or retirement funds.

At Pinnacle Strategies we offer disability insurance policies to a wide range of professionals including physicians, attorneys, consultants, business owners and executives. Our knowledge and expertise will help you get the best disability insurance policy to protect your income and your financial future, giving you peace of mind. Even if you are disabled and cannot work, we will help you insure your lifestyle by protecting what matters most so you can focus on your health and your future.

We can’t predict the future, but we can be prepared for it. The right insurance policies can help protect you and your family against the many risks that physicians face. We work with you to help determine the insurance coverage you need – in the right amounts, for the right price. We can provide you with the professional liability insurance that will guard against errors and omissions in addition to other insurance options you may want to consider that can have negative consequences to your reputation and practice. Rest easy knowing you're covered, while maintaining superior quality of service to your patients. We deal with these common types of insurance plans:

• Long-Term Care

• Life Insurance

• Disability Insurance

• Business Overhead Insurance

Charitable giving can fulfill your legacy of helping people and organizations that are important to you. Properly designed philanthropy plans can also provide significant tax saving opportunities. Your personal and financial goals will determine the extent of any charitable giving plan and the tax benefits your plan can produce. We help clients make charitable gifts in the most tax-efficient manner.

The easiest way to determine if your group disability coverage is enough is to add up your monthly living expenses and compare them with the income you could expect from your existing disability coverage, plus any income you can count on from other sources (i.e. social security, personal savings). If your total income from all sources will not be enough to support you and your family, you should consider buying an individual disability policy to supplement your benefits.

If your employer does not provide group disability insurance coverage, a good alternative is an individual disability insurance policy you purchase on your own through a qualified insurance professional. You never need to worry about losing coverage if you change jobs. An individual policy also gives you the opportunity to consider policies from a multitude of carriers. If you buy through work, you’re usually limited to buying (or increasing) coverage from the carrier with which your employer is contracted. What’s most important is the peace of mind that you’ll have the means to make ends meet in the event you suffer an unexpected injury or illness, and are unable to work and earn an income. Long term disability insurance, provided by an employer, may be inadequate to meet a disabled employee's needs. This is another reason employees might want to consider purchasing supplemental long-term disability insurance.

An insurance carrier can decide whether or not to insure you. As a result, the carrier can be particular with who they offer coverage to. This, however, enables the company to be more liberal with policy provisions, providing you with better policy definitions.

With individual disability insurance, you own it and it’s fully portable. This means it moves with you even if you change employers.

The provider cannot change your premiums or cancel your coverage as long as you pay your premiums on time. Additionally, if you purchase your policy at a younger age, you'll be able to lock in a lower premium.

If you purchase disability insurance with after-tax dollars, your benefits will usually be income tax free.

If you experience an adverse change in health, you can increase your individual / supplemental policy in the future without worrying about losing group benefits if you leave your employer.

Group disability insurance helps attract and retain quality employees and is tax deductible to the business. Coverage is available for both short- and long-term disabilities and often without medical evidence of insurability. Group disability plans tend to have benefit periods to age 65, and typically provide the totally disabled employee a percentage of their salary up to a specified maximum/month.

Short-term group insurance provides benefits for employees who are totally or partially disabled by a covered injury, illness, or pregnancy. It provides benefits for a short period of time, typically three to six months.

Group disability coverage provided by an employer for employees, typically pays 50% to 60% of your base income (pre-tax) for longer periods if you become disabled. LTD coverage usually begins where the short term insurance policy leaves off.

• Most group policies require you to be totally disabled to receive benefit

• Benefits are not portable if you leave your employer

• Benefits can be cancelled by your employer

• If your employer is paying the premiums, the benefits are taxable to you, diminishing the amount of benefit you take home

• Benefit amounts are capped, reducing the replacement ratio for higher incomes

The best way to assess is to look at your financial situation and determine how long you could survive without your income. Long-term illnesses and injuries can devastate your personal finances. You may have enough savings to weather a month’s reprieve from work, but a three-year battle with cancer can drain resources quickly. If you must choose between long and short term disability insurance, you’d be smart to adopt a long term disability policy, which offers significantly greater financial protection. Ideally, the best choice for most consumers is a combination of both.

Many professional associations offer members the opportunity to purchase disability insurance through a group plan. Typically, little underwriting is involved and premiums are based primarily on your age and income. Association insurance is similar to group insurance, but typically has a less favorable definition of disability and has limited benefit amounts. If your need for coverage is great and your budget is limited, this is an option you’ll want to explore.

However, there are drawbacks. If you change professions, the coverage may not follow you and there’s always the chance your professional organization could decide to drop its disability coverage. That can’t happen with most types of privately purchased disability insurance, which are guaranteed renewable as long as you pay the premiums. It is important to consider supplementing your group policy with an individual policy. This will provide you with coverage that is portable, more specific to your occupation and will increase your overall benefit.