Financial Advisor Jay Tyner explains how you can proactively protect your family in the case of a sudden tragedy.

Greensboro, NC – October 10, 2012 – Each and every one of us at some level has dealt with the tragic loss of a loved one, or has watched a person we care about deal with the pain and suffering of a long term disability. Death is inevitable and (according to studies by AARP, Met Life and GE Financial) disability affects one in two Americans over the age of 65 on a long-term basis. With these unpleasant realities so certain, estate and disability planning in America should be well designed and well developed, enabling families to avoid the hardship associated with having a poor plan or no plan at all.

Jay Tyner, President and Founder of Semmax Financial Group, recently discussed three things that every American over the age of 65 should be considering about their estate and disability planning:

• Lawyers can create great legal estate planning documents, but if your assets are not “funded” into the trusts – or if you have documents that are poorly defined in a disability situation, you can end up with a very IN-effective plan. Here are some significant problems to look out for:
  • If you have a trust and none of your accounts are tied to it, the trust will not help your estate avoid probate.  A well-prepared legal document can help your family avoid the cost of probate, (AARP reports average probate costs annually are 3-5%) but if your bank and investment accounts are not held in the name of your trust, it will not help.
  • It is also important to make sure your real estate is tied through newly created deeds to transfer the property into the trust.
• Long-term care can wipe you out financially.  Newly enforced Filial Responsibility laws may end up costing your kids their savings to pay your nursing home bill. This may be hard to believe, but that is the new reality of healthcare.  With home health care aides costing $15-30 per hour and Assisted living facilities costing from $4,000 to $8,000 per month in many parts of the country, nursing homes can cost well over $100,000 per year.  Developing a long-term care plan is critical.  There are a variety of ways to use leverage with specific financial products to help you protect your hard earned retirement savings beyond traditional long term care insurance.  Being proactive and planning for these future tragedies can spare your loved ones the stress of trying to “figure it out.”
• Divide and BE CONQUERED.  All too often financial advisors rely just on financial solutions to solve a client’s long-term care risk.  Likewise, lawyers look to their legal documents to solve the problem.  The best advice is to seek out a “team approach”.  A well-prepared financial plan addressing death and disability, designed in tandem with coordinated and well-drafted legal documents, will yield you the very best results.  Two professionals working “independently” can actually cancel out the effectiveness of one another’s work. Be proactive by insisting that the advisor(s) and lawyer(s) you trust work collaboratively.

With offices located in Winston-Salem and Greensboro, NC, Tyner can be reached at 336-856-0080 or www.semmax.com.

About Jay Tyner:

President and founder of Greensboro, NC based Semmax Financial Group, Inc., Jay Tyner, RFC, brings 20 years of experience helping retirees and pre-retirees structure financial security. Tyner’s approach to retirement planning differs greatly from most financial planners who strive to get their clients TO retirement; Jay Tyner’s focus is to get his clients THROUGH retirement by providing a complete financial plan that utilizes strategies unique to each client’s needs to successfully get them through 25+ years of retirement.

Semmax Financial Group is a full-service wealth management firm committed to serving the complex financial needs of today’s retirees and pre-retirees; providing active financial investment management services, competitive insurance solutions and income tax planning.

Best-selling author of the book “Tsunami Proof Your Retirement”,  Tyner’s approach to retirement planning is conservative and in high demand as he is regularly broadcast on television and published in numerous local and national media including: ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNBC, the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post, the Street, USA Today and many others. Tyner co-hosts a weekly radio show, “Financial Safari” on 94.5 Rush Radio, WSJS 600 AM, and WTRU 830AM & 97.7FM as the North Carolina Triad’s local trusted financial advisor.