stephenson
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2009
- Messages
- 1,670
Hi All,
Background - my 65 yo, never married and no children, sister (we have no other siblings) who is very ill, but now feeling well enough to do some planning, asked me to assist in consolidating her assets into her Trust account at Fidelity. Her assets are spread between seven annuities, various cash bits here and there, a TD Amertitrade account where someone (still trying to figure out who, but I think it was a local “wealth management company”) was receiving a 1.5% annual fee to trade in/out to approximate a 70/30 portfolio, a few stocks held by three different financial institutions, and two local banks and a credit union. Will come back to this last part.
Not much total value - but, a lot of moving parts mainly because she didn't know much about financial planning and was introduced to a “wealth manager” … various bits of income direct to three different accounts at three different institutions, various checks written with no pattern to pay bills, some direct payments, etc. Trying to disassemble the elephant a bit at a time.
First order of business was to sort out and assign beneficiaries for her Fidelity Roth (nothing to do as it was all in Puritan fund - not the best choice over the past 25 years, but OK for now), then her TSP (retired civil service) where she had allocated over about 25 years, 60% to the G fund (basically cash) - we discussed and did some reallocations to 60% C (stock), 20% S (small cap stock), and 20% F (Fixed income), and assigned beneficiaries (my two children). All other assets (except two cars) are titled to the trust, including the Fidelity account.
We then talked about best ways to gather in the various bank/checking accounts into a more manageable construct - so, with help from my Fidelity advisor, we have completed much of this. At about the same time we transferred the stock shares to Fidelity. We are close to getting arms around this - OTOH, just yesterday I figured out she had not closed a small account at Wells Fargo - it had changed names to Wellspring during an acquisition - that is now being transferred to the trust account at Fidelity.
I am now more focused on the annuities and the tranche of ETFs that we transferred to Fidelity. ETFs, first? The attached screen snap is from the Blackrock 70/30 model - she holds these ETFs in those percentages. This was a mess as the previous execution team at another company bought and sold 17-20 ETFs no less than 40 times over the preceding six months, then they were apparently fired and a new team took over - all executed by TD Ameritrade - so, there is little if any taxable result; we are considering the ETFs as a clean sheet at this point. Our goal, given no significant taxable basis, is to find a low cost, single index ETF with about the same apportionment, at Fidelity. Thoughts?
On to the annuities … sheesh … "introduced to this nice lade at lunch with a friend.” OK - seven contracts across four companies. All are single premium, deferred (not yet annuitized), with various goofy sounding “strategies” that are chosen, in some cases, annually). After doing some reading, my Fidelity advisor and I discussed options, including waiting, activating the terminal illness provisions in the six that had this rider, or transferring via 1035 exchange to Fidelity annuity (can combine, supposedly have 0.25% fee vs the 2-2.5% fee at issuing insurance company, and about 55 funds to chose from behind the annuity, can simply surrender with no charge at any time prior to annuitizing, and everything is in same location to allow ease of management). I don’t like using annuities in most cases, so would really appreciate thoughts on how to work through this - I can't really see a reason to not move them all to Fidelity now, assuming we can work through the terminal illness provisions - will see what Fidelity comes up with.
As a side note - with her permission, I have had discussions with both her tax accountant and her estate attorney and compare inputs with what my Fidelity advisor provides.
I am probably rambling, but just now seeming like we are getting close to capturing all the moving bits.
Thanks for your comments!
Background - my 65 yo, never married and no children, sister (we have no other siblings) who is very ill, but now feeling well enough to do some planning, asked me to assist in consolidating her assets into her Trust account at Fidelity. Her assets are spread between seven annuities, various cash bits here and there, a TD Amertitrade account where someone (still trying to figure out who, but I think it was a local “wealth management company”) was receiving a 1.5% annual fee to trade in/out to approximate a 70/30 portfolio, a few stocks held by three different financial institutions, and two local banks and a credit union. Will come back to this last part.
Not much total value - but, a lot of moving parts mainly because she didn't know much about financial planning and was introduced to a “wealth manager” … various bits of income direct to three different accounts at three different institutions, various checks written with no pattern to pay bills, some direct payments, etc. Trying to disassemble the elephant a bit at a time.
First order of business was to sort out and assign beneficiaries for her Fidelity Roth (nothing to do as it was all in Puritan fund - not the best choice over the past 25 years, but OK for now), then her TSP (retired civil service) where she had allocated over about 25 years, 60% to the G fund (basically cash) - we discussed and did some reallocations to 60% C (stock), 20% S (small cap stock), and 20% F (Fixed income), and assigned beneficiaries (my two children). All other assets (except two cars) are titled to the trust, including the Fidelity account.
We then talked about best ways to gather in the various bank/checking accounts into a more manageable construct - so, with help from my Fidelity advisor, we have completed much of this. At about the same time we transferred the stock shares to Fidelity. We are close to getting arms around this - OTOH, just yesterday I figured out she had not closed a small account at Wells Fargo - it had changed names to Wellspring during an acquisition - that is now being transferred to the trust account at Fidelity.
I am now more focused on the annuities and the tranche of ETFs that we transferred to Fidelity. ETFs, first? The attached screen snap is from the Blackrock 70/30 model - she holds these ETFs in those percentages. This was a mess as the previous execution team at another company bought and sold 17-20 ETFs no less than 40 times over the preceding six months, then they were apparently fired and a new team took over - all executed by TD Ameritrade - so, there is little if any taxable result; we are considering the ETFs as a clean sheet at this point. Our goal, given no significant taxable basis, is to find a low cost, single index ETF with about the same apportionment, at Fidelity. Thoughts?
On to the annuities … sheesh … "introduced to this nice lade at lunch with a friend.” OK - seven contracts across four companies. All are single premium, deferred (not yet annuitized), with various goofy sounding “strategies” that are chosen, in some cases, annually). After doing some reading, my Fidelity advisor and I discussed options, including waiting, activating the terminal illness provisions in the six that had this rider, or transferring via 1035 exchange to Fidelity annuity (can combine, supposedly have 0.25% fee vs the 2-2.5% fee at issuing insurance company, and about 55 funds to chose from behind the annuity, can simply surrender with no charge at any time prior to annuitizing, and everything is in same location to allow ease of management). I don’t like using annuities in most cases, so would really appreciate thoughts on how to work through this - I can't really see a reason to not move them all to Fidelity now, assuming we can work through the terminal illness provisions - will see what Fidelity comes up with.
As a side note - with her permission, I have had discussions with both her tax accountant and her estate attorney and compare inputs with what my Fidelity advisor provides.
I am probably rambling, but just now seeming like we are getting close to capturing all the moving bits.
Thanks for your comments!