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The Bespoke Customer Experience – It’s Not Just for Suits

June 09, 2022

From tax minimization to risk mitigation to business continuity planning to institutional portfolio management, high and ultra-high net worth Canadians have a very specific and unique set of wealth planning requirements.

These requirements are complex and demand the expertise of professionals who are accustomed to having deeply personal discussions around the nuances of each client family’s situation.

Enter WealthCo’s IA Platinum Planning Team – a bespoke and multi-disciplinary team designed to collaborate with the client’s CPA and help such families achieve their unique vision for their wealth.

We pride ourselves on making the complex simple, with the resulting planning being very easy to both implement and maintain.

“If the collective experience of the IA Platinum Planning team and the CPA firms we partner with has shown one thing, it is that high net worth Canadians feel overwhelmed and confused by the lack of integration in the advice they receive,” Jeff Dyck, WealthCo’s Vice President Insurance & Estate Planning shares. “The lack of collaboration amongst advisors is a pain point and the inefficiency with how advice is delivered generally leads to inaction. By integrating the advice from the client’s professional advisors and various subject matter experts, IA Platinum helps simplify complex planning issues and delivers bite-sized action items that get families to where they want to be. As a result, we see a significant increase in the perceived value placed in the wealth planning process, with the natural conclusion being implementation.”

Avail Chartered Professional Accountants is Southern Alberta’s largest independently owned business advisory and accounting firm and has been a member of WealthCo’s Integrated Advisory community since 2018. Obed Maurice, a self-described planning enthusiast and a Partner at Avail, speaks enthusiastically about IA Platinum, and the Integrated Advisory approach.

“Proper wealth planning is so important and is a huge focus of mine when it comes to my clients. Integrated Advisory is an awesome complement, helps to deliver clarity, and options, and opportunities – which in turn, helps me to even better serve my client’s specific requirements.”

Components of the IA Platinum Planning Offering

By working in tandem with an individual’s most trusted advisor, their accountant, the IA Platinum Planning team brings in multi-disciplinary specialists from several practice areas, ensuring clients are receiving the most comprehensive planning available.

Estate Planning

Estate planning is an essential part of any financial health picture, and deserves special attention, particularly when there are significant assets at stake. Estate planning doesn’t simply address the distribution of financial capital at death. Proper estate planning also addresses human and social capital, it can help minimize the tax payable both now (and in the future) and can ensure the efficient transition of wealth to subsequent generations.

Wealth Planning

High and ultra-high net worth families don’t require traditional financial planning. Projecting income, assets, and liabilities into the future to determine when they can retire is irrelevant. Having sufficient assets and resources is rarely the issue.

A wealth plan is a more comprehensive approach to planning. It considers not only current and future finances, but also your human capital (your health, education, experience, and creativity) and social capital (the impact you can have in and on society). In addition, a wealth plan takes into account your values and goals, both personal and professional, and begins to address your legacy. Maintaining family harmony, minimizing tax, efficiently transferring corporate or other assets, maximizing philanthropic impact, and ensuring the financial literacy of younger generations are just some of the key issues.

Business Continuity Planning

For high and ultra-high net worth individuals, maintaining the family enterprise may be vital to ensure both the continuity of their business and their wealth. The statistics are staggering: one in three family businesses will not survive the transition to the next generation, with another one-third of those business that do survive then disappearing upon transition to the third generation. Hence the phrase “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”. Family businesses are complex organizations. Careful planning with all stakeholders is required to ensure that they are able to survive and thrive over the long term. Understanding the family and business dynamics, risk mitigation, and continuity objectives of the family is critical to success.

Institutional Portfolio Management

High net worth individuals often have portfolios that are managed by institutions such as banks or investment firms. These portfolios can be complex and require a heightened level of expertise to ensure they are properly managed. A financial planning expert experienced in portfolio management can provide, not only investment guidance, but they can also monitor your portfolio and make adjustments as needed. They can also help to diversify investments.

Philanthropic Planning

Careful planning is essential to ensure that philanthropic giving has the desired impact. By taking the time to develop a comprehensive plan, you can be confident that your charitable donations will be put to good use. There are several factors to consider when creating a philanthropic plan – factors that a philanthropic planning expert will be familiar with and know how to properly navigate. From identifying what one hopes to achieve through their giving to ensuring to align with the right organization to considering the most tax-efficient approach, an expert will be able to ensure the best possible outcome.

Tax Minimization

High net worth individuals are often subject to higher taxes than the average person. As such, tax minimization strategies are essential in order to preserve wealth. There are a number of strategies that can be employed to minimize taxes, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. While there is no single perfect solution for everyone, employing a few well-chosen tax minimization strategies can help to preserve wealth over the long term.

As Maurice points out when describing what initially most attracted him to working with WealthCo as part of the Integrated Advisory network, “WealthCo is very planning focused. I firmly believe that every client deserves a fulsome planning experience, and I ensure that every client of mine gets this customized degree of planning. However, there are definitely different needs that apply at different stages and income levels, and this service offering well recognizes this and provides a fantastic team ready to serve these unique and distinct needs.”

Interested in finding out more about how IA Platinum can help your accounting clients? Let’s schedule a time to chat.