What Does Asset Protection Cover?

Asset Protection for women is a very important topic.  If you’re like most of your wealthy female peers you have a lot to lose.  In case you were curious about your rich female peers here how the stats stand:

According to a study done last year by Asset Management Advisors, 555 women were surveyed, most with net worths of $1 million or more. The survey found that 36% of the respondents inherited their wealth, while another 29% made money from their husband’s employment. Only 7% made their fortunes from their own businesses and less than half of the women surveyed were employed full-time.

With that kind of wealth, you can bet that many unscrupulous people out there would gladly try to separate you from your money.  Just recently, I was at a charity fundraiser and met a newly divorced 40 something woman who told me the horror of having to write a check to her soon to be ex-husband for…..$2,500,000!!! According to her, he was a blue collar working man when they met that swooned her, wined and dined her and after a brief courtship they were married.  No prenuptial was signed.  Just a few short years later he wanted out and took half of her assets with him.  Not too romantic is it?

The inner workings of asset protection are beyond the scope of this blog, however, finding a competent asset protection/trust attorney should be at the top of your list. You’ll need to sit down with one or more professionals who can make you as close to bullet proof as possible.

The range of tools for asset protection run from Federal and State exempt assets such as IRAs, 401(k) plans and pensions to LLC’s and FLP’s, to trusts  and international offshore options.

Unfortunately, there are many shady characters in the asset protection world that run bogus seminars and such to sell you questionable asset protection programs.  As with all things, please do your due diligence on any one you plan on working with.

The Quatloos web site is one of the best sites with regards to updated information on asset protection scams