We are often asked when asset protection is necessary or helpful. Some believe asset protection might only be helpful once you accumulate millions of dollars in assets–but this isn’t always true. We help many wealthy clients and we also assist clients with only a few hundred thousand dollars in assets who want to protect those assets against outside liabilities.
Liability can arise for anyone. The risk of liability might come from driving a car, operating a business, being sued for professional malpractice, suffering economic downturns, engaging in bad investment deals, being subject to lawsuits, entering bankruptcy, and other similar risks. The key is to assess your specific situation and determine how to protect against those risks.
Here is a quick list of individuals who might benefit from some type of asset protection:
- Professions with high liability risk (i.e. physician, dentist, attorney, accountant, engineer, and other similar professions)
- Business Owners
- Property Owners
- Individuals who are close to retirement and want to protect retirement savings while still engaging in business ventures and other activities that might put retirement savings at risk.
- Individuals who have accumulated substantial equity in real property, savings, or investments which with individual needs or wants to protect.
There are many ways to protect your assets such as maintaining liability insurance, using business entities for your business (corporations, LLCs, etc.), creating irrevocable trusts, and various other strategies. No two situations are exactly alike and everyone has different goals and risk tolerance. Finding the right solution to reach your goal is important.
To begin protecting your assets, we generally recommend that clients obtain adequate insurance coverage that frequently exceeds the minimum requirements. We can then analyze your situation and the available options to determine a plan that is unique to your situation.
Timing is important. It is essential to consider asset protection before a claim or liability arises. You can greatly reduce your risk exposure by implementing a plan before you are facing a claim or liability.
Hopefully, you will never need to test your asset protection plan. In any case, you will want the peace of mind and comfort of knowing that your plan will work and your assets are protected and can withstand lawsuits and unforeseen circumstances. We provide a free consultation to help you determine the most effective and appropriate asset protection strategy for your situation.