No matter what you see yourself doing, the places you picture yourself exploring, or when you want to start doing them, we’ll create the right plan to help you retire the way you want.

It’s likely your aspirations for retirement will require solutions that go beyond a 401(k) or IRAs, social security, or if you’re a business owner, the sale of your company. We start by understanding your vision, goals, and situation before making any recommendations. Then, we’ll create a comprehensive plan with the right strategies for investments, annuities, and insurance—each one designed to help maximize your assets, provide income efficiently, and protect you from the unexpected.

Our advisors are also experienced in managing many types of assets and aligning all your other financial relationships to help make sure that the dreams you have for retirement can be reached, when you want to reach them.

For many parents, their top priority is making sure their children (or grandchildren) are set up for success. From saving for your kids’ education to passing your wealth on in a meaningful way, we can help you plan for it.

When thinking about providing for the next generations of your family, we’ll create a strategy that will give you the flexibility and control to hand down your wealth (during your lifetime, after, or both) in a way you see fit. We start by helping you develop a plan or purpose for your assets, then we’ll determine what types of assets to allocate, to who and when, and how best to transfer them. Here are some important questions to consider:

• If you’re contributing to a college fund, are there other types of accounts for additional assets you should be considering?
• How would you help contribute to your child’s wedding, first-home purchase, or annual gifts?
• What are the different ways you can manage the impact of income or estate taxes?
• Do you want to maintain any control or place limits over how the money is used?

Having a plan for your estate—your home, your wealth, your possessions—means you can leave the legacy you want, whether that’s to help your family, a charitable cause, or an institution.

Many people associate estate planning with having a will. While the transfer of your assets is an important part of estate planning, a will is just one aspect of a broader plan designed to make sure your wishes are known, honored, and carried out as efficiently as possible when you're no longer able to articulate them. We work with a team of estate planning experts to help you develop an estate strategy that can help:

• Reduce or eliminate gift, estate, and inheritance taxes for your heirs
• Protect your estate from mismanagement or from claims of creditors or ex-spouses
• Leave the legacy you want, such as paying for your grandchildren’s education or giving to your favorite charitable causes

In addition to the expertise our team can offer, you'll want to work with an estate planning attorney to establish:

• Healthcare directives (also known as living wills) that specify the extent to which you want health care professionals to treat you if you become ill or incapacitated
• Powers of attorney that grant people you trust the legal authority to act on your behalf in case of sudden accident or illness
  • A healthcare power of attorney enables your agent to make healthcare decisions on your behalf
  • A financial power of attorney allows your agent to do things like pay bills, access accounts, and possibly make gifts
• A will or possibly a living trust to make sure your assets are transferred according to your wishes or even name a legal guardian for children under the age of 18
  • The Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company (NMWMC) can serve as trustee of Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts. In addition, through the Trust Alliance Program, NMWMC can partner with nationally-recognized trust administration firms that offer a broad range of services such as revocable trusts, charitable trusts, endowments, and foundations.

Your business reflects you, so it takes personalized business planning to help you grow and protect the value you’ve built in your business.

Whether you’re thinking about setting out on your own or looking to expand your existing business, we can help you plan for success. From protecting against risk and managing growth to attracting and retaining top talent, we’re ready to help you at every stage.

We’ll work with you to develop a tailored plan with financial solutions designed to fit the unique needs of your business, and your life, with advanced strategies to:

• Integrate the important aspects of financial planning for your business and your personal life to help ensure success on both fronts
• Minimize risk by being prepared for the unexpected
• Safeguard your business with coverage to help offset the loss of cash flow if you become sick or hurt
• Recruit and retain high-performing employees with competitive benefits programs
• Enhance your benefits programs to reward employees who are key to the success of your business
• Transition your business smoothly with a properly designed and funded business succession plan

Give your business a competitive edge with a strong benefits package. Our team will work with you to design a competitive suite of benefits that will help attract and retain top talent.

Employee benefits are an important part of the growth of your business. With the right planning, you can compete for, and win, the talent you need to contribute to the success of your business.

Our team can help you design a quality, affordable benefit package that would be available to all employees and can include options such as:

• Group health insurance*
• Group life insurance
• Group disability income planning
• Group dental insurance*
• Group vision insurance*
• Group long-term care planning
• Flexible spending accounts
• Qualified retirement plans such as SEP IRA or 401(k) plans

 

* Group health insurance benefits, group dental insurance, and group vision insurance are offered through an independently owned and operated company which offers access to comprehensive employee benefit services and is not affiliated with, nor a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Planning for executives and key employees

As a business owner, it’s essential to reward your key employees and executives. The right benefits can make a big difference in attracting key executives who will contribute to your company's growth and profitability, and incentivize them to stay for the long run.

Our team will help you design and implement cost-efficient executive benefit packages that can provide additional compensation to select employees which can include:

• A supplemental executive retirement plan that allows you to pay additional income to yourself or key employees in the future, typically in retirement
• An executive deferred compensation plan that allows you or your key employees to forgo receipt of a portion of current income until later, typically in retirement
• Bonus plans that provide you or your key employees with additional income that can be used to purchase insurance, annuities, or investment products

Each of these flexible plans has a variety of tax benefits and tax efficiencies that we can design around the planning goals of your business and participants in non-qualified executive benefit plans. They can also be structured to only benefit certain key executives or in varying degrees for different classes of key executives.

Make sure the business that you’ve worked hard building will continue to move forward once you’ve decided to step back.

Whether it's a few years from now or decades away, there will come a day when you’ll want to step back from your business. Succession planning will chart a course to move your business forward after you leave. And having a plan in place can also give your business a competitive edge while you’re still calling the shots—employees, clients, and suppliers will have greater confidence in the stability of your business.

Our team of experts can help you develop a strong succession plan by helping you:

Set your goals: We start with what you want for your business and yourself after you step away. If you’re not sure what that might be, it’s ok. We’re experts in helping people discover their goals—big and small.

Build your plan: A recent survey¹ found that the top concern of business owners is who will take the reins when they leave. We’ll help you identify the right successor and create a personalized plan based on what you want.

Evaluate your risk: Life is unpredictable, and everything can change overnight. We can design risk management strategies that will help account for the unexpected such as if you become disabled, pass away, or get divorced.

Value your business: Many business owners don’t understand how much their business is truly worth. We have access to proprietary technology with patented algorithms that take the guesswork out of business valuation.

Review your plan: Our advisors will be your trusted partner at every step of the process and provide you with expert advice should your personal or business goals shift today, or down the road.

 

¹ Northwestern Mutual/Forbes Insight Survey 2021

Planning for charitable giving

Now more than ever, people are putting their money where their values are. As part of your financial plan, charitable giving can help support the causes and organizations that are important to you, while maximizing tax efficiencies and defining your legacy.

There are many ways to give back. Our experienced team will work with you and your family to help identify philanthropic goals and develop your charitable giving strategy, which could include some of these options:

Cash: Transfer directly to the charity(ies) of your choice

Stock: Donate shares of stock you own

Other kinds of property: Donate items such as clothing, computers, cars, even life insurance

Donor-Advised Fund: A charitable investment account that offers flexible and efficient ways to manage donating to charities

Private Foundation: A charitable organization funded primarily by a single donor or small group of donors

Charities in your estate planning: Create a legacy of giving by including your favorite charity in your will or trust

Charitable Trusts: Transfer assets out of the estate with the goal of using them for charity

No matter if you’re just starting to craft your philanthropic vision or need help with more complex giving strategies, we have the expertise to help you make an impact.