Basic Asset Protection Strategies

 


The president and founder of Massachusetts-based New England Investment and Retirement Group, Inc., Nicholas Giacoumakis is a nationally recognized investment advisor with more than two decades of experience. One of Barron’s Top 25 Advisors in Massachusetts, Nicolas Giacoumakis focuses on such areas as insurance planning and asset protection strategies.

For individuals and businesses with assets to provide asset protection strategies, with a number of assets, it is important that they insure them properly. The following are a few of several strategies for doing so:

- Increase liability insurance: Personal liability insurance is one of the best ways to protect one’s assets because it offers inexpensive protection in the case of litigation, for example. Ideally, liability insurance coverage should equal an individual’s net worth.

- Create business entities: Running a sole proprietorship allows individuals to function without a partner, but it puts their personal assets at risk if they are sued. Formal business entities, on the other hand, safeguard personal assets from confiscation in the event of an unfavorable result in a lawsuit, for example.

- Start a retirement plan: Many retirement plans, particularly employer-sponsored plans, offer security above and beyond that represented by personal savings accounts. Although an individual can build security by adding discretionary funds to a retirement plan, it should be noted that those funds are also generally more difficult to access.

- Life insurance for estate planning as well as succession planning purposes. This coverage will provide immediate funding to a business or individuals heirs in the event there is an untimely death of a key executive or family provider.