Questions & Answers
What type of clients do you work with?
Why is it important to work with a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™?
Do you take direct custody of client funds?
Identity theft is a growing problem…how do you protect my confidential data?
Tell me about the Chartered Advisor for Senior Living™ (CASL®) designation.
What about your ongoing contact with clients?
What happens if you “get hit by the bus”?
Do you work with other professionals?
What type of clients do you work with?
We work with widows, retirees, and others in life‘s “second half” who enjoy a long-term relationship with a trusted professional advisor.
Our clients:
- want to know their needs and concerns are understood and that we‘re committed to helping them
- see money as a means to an end, not an end in itself
- have been moved into a new chapter of life – a “second half”
- prefer to delegate financial matters, but with accountability and reporting
They typically:
- need retirement income planning, investment management, and/or estate planning
- have a minimum of $250,000 of investable assets
Why
is it important
to work with a
Certified
Financial Planner™?
There’s an alphabet soup of financial designations available these days and new designation “programs” are sprouting up all the time. Many are little more than marketing schemes that lack academic rigor or demonstrated financial expertise.
The CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation is, arguably, the most coveted financial credential for those providing broad-based financial planning to individuals and families.
Typical requirements for CFP® professionals:
- Complete a comprehensive course of study in all facets of financial planning through a college or university program approved by the CFP Board. As of 2007, the new education requirement includes a bachelor’s degree.
- Pass a rigorous two-day, 10-hour certification examination covering the 89 subject areas of financial planning. Of those who sat for the examination in November 2008, less than 56% passed nationwide.
- Minimum of three years of relevant experience.
- Agree to abide by the CFP Board’s Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility.
- Complete a minimum of 30 hours of relevant continuing education every two years, with at least two of those hours covering ethics and/or practice standards.
Do you take direct custody of client funds?
No. Most accounts are opened for investment management clients with Pershing, LLC (clearing and custodial firm) through KMS Financial Services, Inc. Your investments will be held by the attending custodian and your account statements and transaction confirmations will be sent directly to you by them. There is no “Bernie Madoff opportunity” for fraud in this kind of arrangement.
How are you regulated?
SecondHalf Planning & Investment is the DBA of Larry McClanahan, CASL®, CFP®. And Larry’s financial planning and investment activities are monitored and “supervised” for regulatory compliance by KMS Financial Services, Inc., a registered investment advisor and broker-dealer located in Seattle, Washington. Additionally, KMS Financial Services itself is regulated by the SEC, FINRA, and various state investment regulatory agencies.
See SEC Disclosure Form ADV for KMS Financial Services, Inc. and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) web site for further information.
Identity theft is a growing problem…how do you protect my confidential data?
We take very seriously the protection of your information from unauthorized use. This involves different levels from the point you provide information, to the financial firm through which we conduct business, to third-party financial product providers (such as investment and insurance companies).
Most of the information collected on paper gets scanned and converted to secure electronic files. Paper copies are then forwarded to the appropriate financial company or shredded. There are a few exceptions, which are maintained in locked storage.
Access to computer and hand-held phone/PDA is protected by different complex passwords. The office’s wireless access to the financial world is also protected by password and we never access client data where wireless access is unprotected. We also have arrangements for off-site redundant back up of electronic client files and that is protected by “bank grade” encryption technology—on both the sending and the receiving end. Any document with your private data that we email to you will be password-protected.
Business is conducted through KMS Financial Services, Inc. They have also taken thorough steps to protect both physical and electronic client data. Third-party financial product providers also have their own procedures for protecting your sensitive data.
Tell
me about the
Chartered
Advisor
for
Senior Living™ (CASL®)
designation.
Conferred by The American College, the CASL® is the “Harvard” of the designations that focus on the unique needs and concerns of clients in the second half of life.
A Chartered Advisor for Senior Living™ is trained to provide guidance and assistance in: retirement matters; structuring distributions from pensions, retirement plans, and social security; planning for health and long-term care needs; developing effective estate planning strategies; and managing life course transitions.
Requirements to earn the CASL® designation:
- Complete five college courses in the subjects covered above, each course requiring 60-80 hours of study time and concluding with a proctored examination.
- Minimum of three
years experience working
specifically with older
clients.
- Adhere to The American College’s Code of Ethics.
What about your ongoing contact with clients?
Ongoing contact is tailored to client need and the type of service involved. We reach out three or four times a year to advisory clients with whom we have an ongoing relationship. This is typically in addition to any email or other correspondence. The purpose of the contact is to keep in touch, see if there are any changes in circumstances that should be incorporated into our planning, and answer any questions about their investments or broader financial issues. Usually, one of the four annual contacts is an in-person review meeting.
We can certainly meet more frequently as needed to deal with specific financial issues as they arise. And clients are always welcome to call or email and expect a prompt response.
What happens if you “get hit by the bus?”
If Larry McClanahan should have an untimely death or some other incapacitation, as soon as KMS Financial Services receives word of it, they will send written notification to clients. If we don’t already have a business succession plan in place with a specified advisor, KMS Financial Services will review the list of clients and help them make a transition to other KMS advisors who are best-suited and willing to work with them. Of course, it’s always the client’s decision to work with whomever they choose.
We would like to develop a mutual business succession arrangement with an advisor with similar values, philosophy, work style, and who would be a good fit for our clients. This may be an advisor who also affiliates with KMS Financial Services, or it may be a separate arrangement.
Do you work with other professionals?
Yes. No single advisor can be expert in every facet of financial, tax, and estate matters. For this reason, we maintain a small network of allied professionals who provide legal, tax, and mortgage lending services, to whom clients can be referred as needed. This is a professional referral network only and we receive no compensation for such referrals.
While we have a strong grasp of various tax and estate matters, we don’t maintain licenses to provide formal tax or legal advice. As such, we’re happy to share general information and strategies in those areas and to then coordinate such matters with your CPA/LTC or attorney. If you don’t already have a tax practitioner or attorney and you need those services, we’ll be happy to refer you to professionals in our network.
If you have insurance policies which are appropriate for you to keep, we may coordinate such matters with your existing insurance agent. If you need replacement or additional insurance, we may personally help you obtain it or coordinate with an insurance professional in our network.
We expect that all retirement income planning, investment management, and comprehensive financial planning will be handled by us. As such, we don’t work with other financial planners or investment advisors operating in similar capacity. Exceptions are considered for very large investment portfolios and other unique circumstances.