What you value may be more important than what you own. To follow through on your commitments -- to yourself, your family, and your ideals -- you need to think ahead. A personalized estate plan is important in helping to protect your family and your legacy.

A well-constructed strategy can help address your specific estate planning needs including:

• Minimizing income and estate taxes
  
• Transferring wealth from one generation to the next
  
• Developing charitable gifting strategies
  
• Aligning existing portfolios and retirement accounts with your estate plan

Business ownership brings its own set of responsibilities. Changing your current business structure or successfully transferring your business before you retire requires careful planning.

Since many clients are faced with intangibles such as personal emotions, family relationships, and business associations, the objectivity of an experienced adviser can facilitate the process. A comprehensive business succession plan can help you address your specific needs such as:

• Growing your business
  
• Protecting your assets
  
• Ensuring the continuation and succession of your business
  
• Minimizing taxes
  
• Promoting, recruiting, retaining, and rewarding your key employees
  
• Maximizing your compensation benefits
  
• Providing for estate equalization
  
• Promoting family harmony

The amount you will need in retirement depends on the age you plan to retire, your desired retirement lifestyle, how long you expect to live and the rate of return that you expect to earn on your investments. Social Security and employer-sponsored pension plans will probably provide less of what you will need than they did for your parents.

Consideration should be given to one or more of the following strategies when trying to maximize your retirement income:

• Clearly prioritized retirement goals and objectives
  
• Retirement at a later age
  
• Saving more
  
• Spending less during retirement
  
• Invest to earn a potentially higher rate of return on investments while still feeling comfortable with the level of risk involved
  
• Liquidation of non-cash assets
  
• Social Security
  
• Maximize contributions to qualified retirement plans
  
• Invest in IRA

Education planning for your children can be a major financial consideration. Planning early allows you to take advantage of the time value of money and help minimize the savings requirement.

Consideration should be given to one or more of the following strategies when trying to maximize your college planning:

• Prioritize your education objective with your insurance needs, retirement needs, major purchases and current income needs
  
• Develop an effective savings strategy that considers asset allocation and takes advantage of education plans
  
• Consider the various education funding accounts -- Qualified State Tuition Plans (also known as 529 Plans), Uniform Transfer to Minor Accounts (UTMA) / Uniform Gifts to Minor Accounts (UGMA), Coverdell Educational savings accounts and prepaid tuition plans
  
  
• Ensure college expenses are properly planned -- include tuition, room and board and living expenses. Factor in an inflation rate for the rising cost of tuition. Should you consider planning for post-graduate studies? Do you expect your child/children to receive scholarships or financial aid?

You can now receive the same portfolio management services as many institutional investors-whether it is a separately managed account or a mutual fund wrap portfolio.

Some benefits of managed portfolios include:

• Providing access to top-tier investment management professionals
  
• Tailored portfolios to meet specific investment needs
  
• Ownership of individual securities
  
• Ease of pre-designed mutual fund portfolios
  

Every investor is unique, and investment advisory services provide you with professional investment advice and a personalized investment strategy. Whether you're seeking a tailored, professionally managed portfolio, or the convenience and simplicity of a diversified mutual fund wrap program, your investment choice should focus on meeting your financial goals. During this process, you should consider current and future growth objectives, income needs, time horizon and risk tolerance. These considerations form the blueprint for developing a portfolio management strategy. The process involves, but is not limited to, the following important stages.

• Set investment objectives
  
• Develop an asset allocation strategy
  
• Evaluate/Select investment vehicle
  
• Portfolio review -- Ongoing portfolio monitoring

A sound plan must address the insurance coverages you, your spouse and family members may require.

• Life insurance is used to pay for funeral expenses, repay outstanding debts, make charitable donations and provide living expenses for surviving family members. It can also be used to cover estate taxes and probate fees to enable your estate to be liquidated in the most appropriate manner.
  
• Disability income insurance is to help partially replace income of persons who are unable to work because of sickness or accident. In terms of its financial effect on the family, long-term disability can be just as severe as death. Disability income protection can come from several sources: social insurance programs, employer-provided benefits, and individually purchased policies.
  
• Long Term Care Insurance is relatively a new type of insurance product. Many people do not understand what Long Term Care insurance policies cover, how and when the policies benefit, and who should obtain coverage.