Personal & Businesses Insurance Solutions
Birkenstein Financial focuses on 1035 exchanges and life insurance planning for high net worth families. We have expertise in corporate employee benefits and concentrate on group disability and health insurance.
Business Planning: We help cut the cost of existing group disability, assist with knowledge, and expand benefits. We also have command on health insurance and make the employer aware of more state of the art/cost-effective products.
Personal Planning: We assist high net worth families analyze the impact of a 1035 exchange on their life insurance portfolio. We do not promote or advocate 1035 exchanges in all situations. We want our clients to look at both the advantages and, more important, the disadvantages of doing the exchange. Our senior principal has over 30 years of experience dealing directly with 1035 exchange life insurance transactions.
Group Disability Insurance for Employees
The first areas of potential imbalance we look at are:
- Cost: Many existing policies charge above market premiums. You are probably overpaying and don't know it.
- Are all claims covered? (Many contracts hide provisions limiting maladies like back pain or headaches to only one or two years of payments!)
- Is there a compensation coverage limit? The plan may purport to pay 60% of compensation, but has a limit of $5,000. Therefore, anyone earning in excess of $100,000 will receive less than 60%.
- Often, the definition disability changes after 2 years to "any occupation"? If so, the employee may stop receiving insurance payments if they continue to work anywhere.
- Is the disability payment taxable or tax free to the disabled employee?
- Is your carrier providing an Employee Assistance Plan at no cost?
- Is the policy with a superb financially rated insurance carrier? An employee who becomes disabled for several years, wants to know that the carrier will continue to make payments for many years. You need not sacrifice price for quality. Most top rated carriers do not charge higher premiums.
We can review your policy or employee booklet and within two minutes, tell you if your plan contains any of these shortcomings.
Personal Insurance Analysis
As life insurance experts, we will analyze your existing policies, ask you a lot of questions and help you determine if a 1035 exchange makes sense. If it does not, we will advise you to maintain your existing policies. We suggest that your tax and or legal advisors be included in the discussion and analysis. Typically, the entire process takes several weeks.
What is the cost to you for our services?
Nothing. We do not get paid unless you see results. We will not charge you a fee. We receive compensation in the form of a commission paid by the insurance company issuing the new policy.
That new policy will only be issued if your goals are met. If we are unable to show you results, a lower premium as an example, then we do not get compensated.
The Steps
A good question and answer dialogue will help us understand your goals and what you and your family are trying to accomplish. After that dialogue is complete, here is a step by step example of the services we may provide: