How We Do It
Fee Only or Comprehensive Wealth Management
Fee for Service Model: Some people come to HBCM looking only for analysis of their situation. For these people, we offer a Fee-Only Planning Model focused on identifying strategies to help clients make informed financial decisions. In this model, HBCM delivers a comprehensive analysis and supporting recommendations for clients to implement at their discretion. Fees typically range from $950 to $5000 depending on the complexity and time involved.
Wealth Management Model: Creating a plan is important, but implementing and managing the plan are the keys to planning success. In the Wealth Management Model, HBCM bundles all financial planning, asset management and supervision services under a single, transparent fee structure. We strive to provide timely support and guidance, ensuring financial strategies are implemented and monitored effectively, with the intent to do more than just deliver advice. We ensure that recommendations are implemented, supervised and reviewed on an ongoing basis and that important financial decisions are not left to think about later.
Financial Planning Tools
A great deal of financial planning is about understanding tradeoffs and optimizing the interaction of financial resources and strategies. It takes significant software sophistication to analyze and illustrate these items effectively. We use some of the industries’ leading planning tools to provide our clients with the best possible analysis and related advice. For example:
eMoney - An industry leading financial planning tool that serves as the foundation for our client relationships. It also includes a collaborative financial management system which, among other things, provides our clients with consolidated financial analysis and reporting, secure information sharing, automated expense tracking and budgeting tools and much more. We include access to this system as part of our financial planning process.
Riskalyze - It has been said that the best time to repair holes in your roof is before the rains start, and in this same vein, it’s critical to understand the risks you face in your investment portfolio before the markets expose them for you.
Morningstar - Morningstar is the industry leader in the collection of historical data about publicly traded securities and other financial products. While past performance is not a guarantee of future results, we cannot begin to look to the future without first understanding the past.
Intelligent Diversification
Stocks and bonds are generally the core of an investment portfolio. However, it is our belief that maintaining a well-balanced investment allocation goes beyond these traditional asset classes. We believe the use of guarantees, buffering, real estate and other alternative asset classes can help to provide better organic cash flows and risk adjusted returns over time. Relying on our experience and industry insight, we use intelligent diversification to deliver long-term wealth confidence to our clients. Disclosure: Investments involve risk and there is no guarantee of achieving specific returns.
Industry Leading Research and Resources
A firm with the scale and experience of HBCM commands a great deal of attention from financial companies and supporting partners. In addition to our own research, Equitable Advisors leverages tools from third-party vendors that have been vetted and approved. We also work with numerous industry partners to research, filter, compare and select the very best tools that are available to our clients. Our knowledge of the options and our access to the best tools available are just a couple of the important ways that we add value to our clients’ financial decision making.
Collaborating with other Professionals
Financial success is built on a coordinated effort across several financial disciplines. While HBCM often serves as the central planning coordinator for our clients, we understand the importance of working with our clients’ accounting and legal advisors to achieve maximum success. We also maintain our own network of professional advisors for those times when referrals are needed. These resources include tax, legal, mortgage and risk management professionals.
Peer Review
We actively monitor our investment planning process and investment models. We also share our models with some of the most respected investment companies in the world who evaluate them against industry standards and best practices and who compare our performance against benchmarks and competitors.
CFP® and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® are certification marks owned by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. These marks are awarded to individuals who successfully complete the CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements.