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Financial planning isn’t just about growing your wealth or preparing for retirement. It’s also about protecting what you’ve built, preparing for the unexpected, and making decisions that support the life you want to live.
That’s where real financial planning (that comes from fiduciaries) can make a difference. If you're wondering how you can protect your wealth from increasingly convincing AI scams or how to approach those midlife financial decisions that are all too easy to put off, a financial planner in the Network might be the right fit to help you work through that next.
Wealth protection, insurance, and big-life-altering financial (and personal) decisions don’t happen in isolation. Your financial security depends on more than investment returns alone. It's also a product of who you've got in your corner when things start to turn. In this collection of advisor insights, you’ll learn how to manage financial risks, protect the people and assets that matter most, and make more confident decisions at every stage of life.
Advisor Insights ↘
How to Help Your Parents As They Age — 80% of What You Need to Do (Excerpt from Book)
By Elliott Appel, CFP®, CLU®, RLP®, Kindness Financial Planning
In honor of my new book, How to Help Your Parents As They Age: A Financial Planner’s Guide to Caregiving, being released on Monday, September 14, I’m offering you a sneak peek into it.
Below is a complete chapter from the book called “80% of What You Need to Do.” My hope is that you’ll order and read the entire book, but for those who want a few steps that might make the most impact, it talks about what I would do first.
Extra Resource: As you get organized, consider using an “in case of emergency” downloadable template. It’s 104 pages that you complete to provide a roadmap for your family step in to help you.
Excerpt:
As a caregiver, I know you are short on time. You may not have time to do everything in this book. In fact, I don’t expect you’ll be able to do everything over the course of a year. My hope is that you’ll be able to chip away at different actions depending on your priorities and what is already done.
In this chapter, I’m going to offer a few actions that will hopefully get you about 80% of the way there in protecting your parents. These actions will lay the groundwork for helping in emergencies and to prevent fraudsters and scam artists.
CREATE OR UPDATE ESTATE PLAN
There is an entire chapter dedicated to creating or updating your parents’ estate plan because of how important it is for them and you, so we’ll just do a quick review here and when you need more detail, go to that chapter.
Without an estate plan, you won’t be able to help your parents well. The Financial Durable Power of Attorney is what will allow you to help them with finances, even if they are incapacitated or have cognitive impairment. The Medical Durable Power of Attorney is what will allow you to make healthcare decisions for them if they are unable. The Will allows you to become executor and carry out their wishes after they die.
Protecting Your Wealth From AI Scams: 4 Practical Ways to Reduce Digital Fraud Risk
By Phil Weiss, CFA, CPA, RLP®, and Robert Siciliano, Apprise Wealth Management
Protecting your financial life involves more than investment returns, taxes, and retirement planning. It also means thinking about how you protect the assets you have already built from increasingly convincing forms of digital fraud.
AI scams are becoming more convincing and easier to personalize. Scammers can use generative AI, voice cloning, and synthetic media to impersonate people or organizations you trust, whether it is a family member calling with an emergency, someone sending new wire instructions, or an institution asking you to verify account information.
This is not simply a hypothetical concern. Fraud involving AI-generated content is already appearing in consumer and law-enforcement warnings, including schemes using synthetic voices, images, and messages to impersonate trusted people and organizations.
That may sound intimidating. The encouraging part is that you do not need to understand every new technology to reduce your risk. A few consistent habits can make it harder for a scammer to get you to act before you verify what is happening.
Risk Tolerance Isn’t Enough: Why Disability and Life Insurance Belong in the Conversation
By Ivan Havrylyan, CFP®, Outside The Box Financial Planning
When people think about risk in financial planning, they usually think about investments.
They ask questions like:
- How much market volatility can I tolerate?
- What would I do if my portfolio dropped 20%?
- Should I invest more aggressively?
- Should I take less investment risk as retirement gets closer?
Those are important questions. But investment risk is only one part of a complete financial plan.
In our previous post, Decoding Investor Success: Understanding the Vital Role of Risk Tolerance and Capacity, we discussed the difference between risk tolerance and risk capacity.
Risk tolerance is your emotional willingness to accept uncertainty and potential loss. Risk capacity is your financial ability to withstand a disruption without putting your goals at risk.
That distinction should not end with your investment portfolio.
For anesthesiologists, CRNAs, nurse practitioners, and other highly compensated medical professionals, one of the greatest risks is often not a market decline. It is a disruption to your ability to earn income.
You may be comfortable with market fluctuations. You may have a long-term investment mindset. But that does not necessarily mean your household can absorb a prolonged loss of income.
That is why disability insurance and life insurance belong in the broader risk-management conversation.
Financial Decisions in Midlife: When Waiting Can Cost You
By Phil Weiss, CFA, CPA, RLP®, and Robert Siciliano, Apprise Wealth Management
A client once told me a story that has stayed with me.
Years ago, when she was in her 40s, she and her husband traveled to Egypt to see the Great Pyramids. Many people on her tour had dreamed of making that trip for years. They had saved. They had planned. They had waited.
When the group arrived, they learned what going inside would involve. It would be hot. The passageways were cramped. There were stairs to climb. Getting around would take some effort.
Several of the older travelers realized they couldn’t do it.
They had finally made the trip. They could stand outside and see the pyramids. But after waiting so long, they were no longer physically able to have the experience they had traveled thousands of miles for.
That story illustrates an idea I’ve written about before: We don’t just have a timeline for our bucket list. We have a healthline, too.
But I think the lesson reaches beyond travel.
Good Financial Reads is an XYPN publication that brings together insights from fee-only financial advisors across the country, helping make financial planning topics more approachable, understandable, and actionable.
Whether you're navigating a major life change, building wealth, planning for retirement, or simply looking to make more informed financial decisions, our contributors share practical guidance drawn from their real-world experience helping clients every day.
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