| 31 October 2009
Thompson Creek takes Estate Planning, and other areas where legal advice and work is necessary, seriously. We have listened closely to the legal profession and the issues that concern you, as well as the many concerns you have about how to serve your clients most effectively.
Our goal is to work with you to insure our mutual clients receive the best advice, efficiently coordinated, they possibly can. At the beginning of any relationship, we will contact you on their behalf to establish a smoothly working, well thought out, process for coordinating our efforts. We cannot be as effective as we wish without your expertise and help.
You will have the opportunity to educate us on client needs, action steps they have not yet completed and the information you need to serve them most effectively. By having highly qualified financial, legal and tax professionals proactively assessing your clients’ needs with a comprehensive approach, you can be confident your clients’ issues will be addressed on a timely and proactive basis.
That means when your services can help we will contact you. You will be provided with a complete assessment of their financial assets, cash flows and needs. Changes in the status of beneficiaries, executors, trustees (and potential executors and trustees) and goals will be prepared so you can do your job in the most effective way possible.
Estate Planning is an area many people “put off.” Once established we understand from your feedback that plan reviews are not conducted frequently enough. We designed a process that actively addresses the concerns you have on that front.
By having a comprehensive flat fee approach clients welcome us reviewing their plan confident that if plans need adjusting and your services are required, it is a real need. By gathering and preparing the case for the client, we reduce the tendency for procrastination. You are less likely to have cases drag on while waiting for all the necessary information.
Another frequent concern we hear is over the matter of Life Insurance. While you, and we, recognize how important Life Insurance can be in designing an effective solution, we understand your concern about the sales oriented nature of most insurance planning. As fellow fiduciaries who do not receive any compensation from the provision of life insurance, we have every incentive to reduce the impact of insurance premiums if possible. Therefore, we can ethically help our mutual clients procure the necessary policies. Our team’s experience in insurance related matters is broad and deep, amounting to many decades as agents, planners, and attorneys. We suggest finding out more about our approach to insurance, which is unique to this area, by studying the fiduciary insurance section of this website.
While we may have opportunities throughout the year to communicate with you, we will work closely with you:
- Whenever the law changes and triggers the need to review.
- Whenever we identify changes in the client’s situation requiring an adjustment to their planning such as:
- Significant changes in their asset levels or composition
- The need to change assigned beneficiaries, executors or trustees
- Each year we conduct a roundtable discussion between all relevant professionals for each client. This unique opportunity for professionals to discuss, analyze and assess each client with insights from a variety of experts not only is a benefit for the client, but a chance for true learning for all of us. We invite you to participate in these collaborative exercises with your client’s authorization.
We believe our process will help you become more valuable to your clients, reduce the chances for errors and oversights and develop opportunities to add value through timely and proactive advice before it is too late or opportunities pass by.
Since we view everything we do in terms of partnership, we encourage all of you to contact us to help. While we have devoted an enormous amount of time and thought to develop our model, we know there is always more to do. We welcome and encourage your counsel and advice on how to improve our service and more effectively serve you and our mutual clients. Help us become a firm you have complete confidence in your clients choosing.
Finally, we encourage you to contact us to ask questions or ask for help in any way. We welcome the opportunity to be a resource and give advice to you whenever possible.