Why Choose CoreTegic Capital?
Transparent – CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ – Trusted Advice
CFP® PROFESSIONAL
No matter where you are in life, CFP® professionals strive to deliver the highest standard of financial planning service to make sure you’re on the right track. From planning for retirement to saving for college, CFP® professionals are trained to help you develop a comprehensive strategy to work towards your short- and long-term financial goals.
WHY DO I NEED A CFP® PROFESSIONAL?
Most people think all financial planners are “certified,” but this isn’t true. Anyone can use the title “financial planner.” Only those who have fulfilled the certification and renewal requirements of CFP Board can display the CFP® certification trademarks, which represent a high level of competency, ethics and professionalism. And because we are held to a fiduciary standard of care, the CFP® professional is required to act in your best interest.
Education
Examination
Experience
Ethics
In addition, a CFP® professional is required to maintain and update their knowledge through ongoing continuing education requirements, much like an attorney, Certified Public Accountant (CPA) or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). This ongoing requirement ensures that the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ you are working with is most up-to-date in their area of expertise: financial planning.
THE CFP® PLANNING PROCESS
To help ensure that the client receives the best financial planning experience, the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ follows a six-step process.
Step 1: Establish the Relationship
In the first step of the financial planning process, the CFP® and client come together to discuss what will be covered in the financial plan.
Sometimes financial planning engagements can be limited to investment management, such as an exclusive review of a 401(k) allocation. Other times, a review of the total of a client’s insurance needs can be performed to determine whether a client has sufficient (or excess) life insurance, disability insurance, liability coverage or the right type of medical insurance for themselves and their family.
More inclusive financial plans can include retirement planning to determine if a client is on course for retirement or if their budgeting in retirement is sustainable.
A CFP® Professional can also produce a comprehensive financial plan, which includes all of the above, as well as reviewing a client’s options for charitable giving and/or business retirement solutions.
Some areas that can be covered in a comprehensive financial plan include:
- Investment Management
- Charitable Giving Services
- Financial Planning
- Business Retirement Solutions
- Retirement Planning
- Insurance Services
Step 2: Gather Data
In the second step of the financial plan, the client provides the CFP® Professional with all their financial information. This can include an employer’s 401(k) menu of mutual funds, or statements of all their insurance policies.
In addition to the hard data, the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ also discusses the client’s life goals and values to determine what matters most to them.
Step 3: Analyze Client Data
Once the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional has all of the client’s relevant information in hand, the analysis begins. Financial planning software, or even simple Excel spreadsheets can be used to determine if the client has:
- Enough money saved for retirement
- Enough life insurance coverage
- Gauge whether or not, the client’s portfolio is well diversified and appropriately allocated given their risk tolerance and timeline to retirement
Step 4: Make Recommendations
In this step, the CFP® Professional presents their findings to the clients. This includes receiving the client’s current financial situation, but also showing how the client can work towards their goals. Possible recommendations presented by the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ could include:
- Implementing a more diversified, lower-cost, tax-efficient investment portfolio
- Opting for less expensive term life insurance over permanent life insurance
- Charitable giving strategies to meet one’s philanthropic goals
- Tax strategies to mitigate and estate tax and probate expenses
There is no guarantee that a diversified portfolio will enhance overall returns or outperform a non-diversified portfolio. Diversification does not protect against market risk.
Step 5: Implementation
In this step of the financial planning process, the client and the CFP® Professional come together to decide not only what recommendation the client will take on, but who will be responsible for putting those recommendations into place. This may mean that the fee-only CFP® works with other financial professionals to:
- Find a lower-cost term life insurance policy for the client
- Rebalance the client’s portfolio to create a low-cost, diversified, tax-efficient strategy
- Help the client open a donor-advised fund so that they can meet their charitable gifting goals
It could also mean that the client creates a new saving goal for themselves, increasing their annual savings into IRA and/or their 401(k) accounts.
Step 6: Monitoring
For the final step of the financial planning process, the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and the client determine who will follow up on which portions of the financial issues addressed in the client’s financial plan. In the example of retirement planning, a CFP® professional can be tasked with measuring the client’s progress saving for retirement.
