Fee-Based Financial Planning

When you want a financial plan developed with your goals and interests put above all else, it’s a good time to engage a fee-based financial planner.

Fee-based financial planners design unique personal financial plans and are compensated for their time and expertise. Under this fee structure, the planner is a fiduciary and has a legal and moral responsibility to place your interests first.

Of course, your planner’s role goes beyond just providing expert guidance in the creation of your financial plan. A fee-based planner can also help you with the implementation of your plan through a combination of appropriate and innovative insurance, brokerage, advisory and/or private client platform solutions.

In the end, your planner is paid to work with you to make sure your financial needs are met with care, with expertise and with an understanding of your unique circumstances and individual goals. Together, you will agree on the appropriate fee structure based upon those needs and the specific services required.

Making great decisions about your wealth, whether you are deciding to grow it, protect it or both, starts with sound thinking – thinking that makes sense. Here’s how our thinking starts when it comes to helping you make important financial decisions.

The Planning Process

With financial independence, family legacy and social capital solutions in place, wealth optimization becomes the focus of the planning process. Your planner will use a unique and disciplined values-based approach to help you make wise choices and to help ensure that your plan is focusing on what you value.

The planning process consists of four quadrants or phases, each one representing one planning cycle: Discovery, Creative Solutions, Strategy Deployment, and Results Management.

1. Discovery: Identify and think about the problem. The first phase begins by thinking clearly about the problem. This is called the Discovery phase, and this is where clarity on your goals is achieved and planning gaps are identified.
2. Creative Solutions: Think about the solution. The second phase is the Creative Solutions phase, in which you think clearly about the solutions and make decisions regarding closing the planning gaps.
3. Strategy Deployment: Implement the solution. The third phase is the Strategy Deployment phase, in which you implement the solution that helps you achieve your desired results.
4. Results Management: Manage the results. The final phase is the Results Management phase; we establish a plan to manage and implement the results. This assures that you have confidence your plan will work over time.

Working with a knowledgeable and experienced planner who has access to current technologies and a thorough understanding of tax rules and financial planning techniques is important. Working with an advisor who takes the time to understand your unique desires and goals is critical.

Your planner will take the time to help you make that assessment, develop a plan that works for you and provide you with the tools and strategies necessary to successfully implement that plan.

Wealth Management

Our wealth management services go above and beyond what you might expect from a financial services provider. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company offers:

Investment advisory services, designed to:

• Provide high-quality investment services and products.
• Build and monitor diversified portfolios.
• Develop objective, personalized plans.
• Focus on long-term results.

Trust services and partnerships, designed to:

• Provide continuity of stewardship that can last multiple generations.
• Preserve family harmony when carrying out your intentions.
• Carry out detailed record-keeping and accounting.
• Calculate taxes and file returns.

Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company serves as trustee on Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts. In addition, through our Trust Alliance Program, we partner with nationally-recognized trust administration firms that offer a broad range of services to revocable trusts, charitable trusts, endowments and foundations.

Online access to your account, so you can review:

• Comprehensive monthly statements.
• Performance reporting.
• Account access on a secure website.
• Current account balances on your investment holdings.
• Detailed transaction records on all accounts.

Retirement Planning

Now more than ever, retirement planning is critical. Gone are the days when pensions and Social Security provided all of the income you needed for retirement. The new reality is that you are responsible for managing your own retirement, and that starts with making sure you're strategic in your planning.

We can help. At Northwestern Mutual, our approach to retirement planning is designed to help you get to—and through—retirement with a greater level of financial confidence, so you can relax knowing you have a road map to achieve your goals.

You'll want to start by considering how much to save for retirement and where to save it. By accumulating as much as you can as soon as you can, you can put time on your side—time to plan, time to weather the ups and downs of the market and time to let your money grow.

And then, as you zero in on retirement, you'll need a different set of strategies to manage risk and make your money last through retirement.

Investment Strategies

Your goal to achieve financial security will undoubtedly include investing for your future.

We can offer you the expertise you need to ensure your investment strategies are aligned with your goals, time horizon and tolerance for risk.

Northwestern Mutual offers investment advisory services, private client services and trust services. Within these levels of service, we may recommend that your portfolio include one or more of the following investment tools.

• Signature Choice is an investment advisory program that allows your wealth management advisor to provide advice concerning asset allocation, security selection and rebalancing. Your advisor can utilize a wide range of securities including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and individual equity and fixed income investments to help implement your investment strategy.

• Signature Managed Accounts is an investment advisory program that utilizes third party asset management and portfolio manager selection to assist in providing you with a comprehensive investment solution.

• Signature Portfolios is an investment advisory program that utilizes select mutual funds and/or exchange traded funds to construct well-diversified portfolios for your needs.

• Signature Annuities is an investment advisory solution that utilizes investment options available within the NM Select^TM Variable Annuity to construct, comprehensive, well-diversified investment portfolios for your needs.

We also have access to offer you the following products and services through Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS):

• Bonds
• Cash management services
• CDs
• Money market funds
• Mutual funds
• Stocks
• Treasury bills
• UITs

Risk Management Solutions

When your financial plan includes wealth protection and risk management, you'll be helping to ensure your family — and your vision for the future — is secure.

We'll work with you to develop strategies to:

• Provide for your family in the event of death.

  Life insurance policies can be designed with different needs in mind. They can provide temporary protection, cash accumulation or may be utilized as part of an estate plan. Through our association with Northwestern Mutual, we have access to Northwestern Mutual's high-quality, competitively priced life insurance products, including permanent, term, combination and variable policies.

• Provide for you and your family in the event of a disability.

  Disability income insurance helps to protect your most valuable asset, your ability to earn an income. But what if the unexpected happened and you suddenly weren’t able to earn a living because of illness or injury? Not only would you have the stress of meeting everyday living expenses, but you might also have to put other goals, like saving for a child's college or for retirement, on hold.

• Provide for long-term care.

  Long-term Care events can have a significant impact on your financial security. Planning for long-term care events can help provide options on how to fund and receive care, should you need it.

Education Funding

If one of your financial goals is to pay for a child’s education, the earlier you establish a college savings plan, the better. A personalized education funding plan will not only help you save more, it will also give you more time to ride the ups and downs of the financial markets if you choose to invest your savings.

Two of the most common college funding vehicles are 529 Plans and Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, though there are many ways to save for a child’s education.

And although your wish may be to fully fund your child’s education, don’t allow that goal to put your own retirement at risk. It’s much like the instructions you’re given by flight attendants when you travel by air: In case of emergency, put your oxygen mask on first before putting it on your child. If you don’t take care of funding your own retirement, you may end up weighing down your kids with that responsibility later in life. Children have options for funding their education, such as loans and scholarships. Retirees don’t.

Working together on your education funding strategies, we can help you better understand your options to meet all of your financial goals.