When to Call Stephen
Life sends changes your way faster than a scheduled review can keep up with. Stephen works with individuals to make sure the financial side of a life event, like a new job, a new home, or a new stage of retirement, gets handled with the same care as everything else on your plate.
Call 301-944-4382 or email stephen.koda@advocateinvesting.com
Changing Jobs
A new role touches almost every part of your financial picture at once.
A raise makes it tempting to spend more right away. A quick budget reset helps you capture the extra income as savings instead of letting your cost of living quietly climb to match it.
New plan, new default settings. Many people get auto-enrolled at 3 percent when they could afford more. Worth checking the number matches your actual goals.
Health insurance, HSA or FSA, life insurance, and disability coverage all reset with a new employer. Getting these elections right the first time avoids gaps in coverage.
Leave it, roll it into your new plan, or roll it to an IRA. Each option has trade-offs on fees, investment choice, and simplicity. Doing nothing is also a decision, just usually not the best one.
If there's a stretch between jobs where your income dips, that can be a window to convert pre-tax retirement funds to Roth at a lower tax rate than usual.
New accounts mean new beneficiary forms. This is one of the most overlooked steps and one of the most important, since beneficiary designations override your will.
Getting Married
Combining two financial lives takes more than combining bank accounts.
There's no single right answer here. The right structure depends on how you both want to manage money day to day and plan for shared goals.
Retirement accounts, life insurance, and any other beneficiary-based accounts need to reflect your new spouse if that's your intent.
Filing jointly changes your tax brackets and can change how much should be withheld from each paycheck.
When both spouses have employer health coverage available, comparing plans usually saves money versus defaulting to whatever you each had before.
Buying a Home
The biggest purchase most people make deserves more than a gut check.
A mortgage payment that looks fine on paper can feel very different once property taxes, insurance, and maintenance are added in.
Pulling from the wrong account can trigger taxes or penalties, or leave you without an emergency cushion. Worth mapping out before you make an offer.
Sometimes a short term reduction makes sense to build up cash for closing costs, as long as it's a deliberate, temporary choice rather than something that just drifts on.
First time buyers may be able to pull a limited amount from an IRA without the usual early withdrawal penalty. Worth knowing the rules before you tap any account.
Between Jobs or Job Loss
An income gap is exactly when a plan matters most.
COBRA isn't always the cheapest option. It's worth comparing against marketplace plans before defaulting to it.
Knowing exactly how many months your savings can cover removes a lot of the stress from a job search.
A year with less income can be one of the most tax-efficient times to convert retirement savings to Roth.
Inheriting Money or a Windfall
A sudden amount of money creates as many decisions as it does opportunities.
Inherited IRAs come with specific timelines for withdrawal. Missing them can mean a larger tax bill than necessary.
It's common to freeze after a windfall and let it sit uninvested for years. A simple plan gets the money working again without rushing into anything.
A meaningful inheritance can change your timeline for goals like retirement or paying off a mortgage. Worth revisiting the full picture, not just where to put the cash.
Approaching Retirement
The five to ten years before retirement are when small decisions have the biggest impact.
When you claim Social Security can change your lifetime benefit significantly. Modeling this against your other income sources helps you pick a timeline with confidence.
The portfolio that got you to retirement isn't always the right one to carry you through it. Risk tolerance usually shifts as the timeline shortens.
Missing your Medicare enrollment window can mean permanent penalties on your premium. Worth planning ahead of the deadline, not scrambling at it.
Converting gradually over several years, before required minimum distributions kick in, can reduce your lifetime tax bill compared to converting all at once or not at all.
You Don't Have a Plan Yet
Starting a plan is easier, and cheaper, than most owners expect.
Under SECURE 2.0, eligible small businesses starting a new plan can qualify for tax credits that offset a large portion of setup and administration costs for the first few years.
A retirement plan is one of the top benefits candidates look for. Not having one can quietly cost you hires to competitors who do.
Your Plan Hasn't Been Reviewed in Years
A plan set up a decade ago was built for a different business than the one you run today.
Plan fees should be reviewed periodically against the market. Many plans are paying more than they need to simply because nobody has checked in a while.
Funds that were good options years ago aren't always still competitive. A stale lineup can quietly hurt participant returns.
Match formula, eligibility requirements, and vesting schedules should reflect where your business is today, not where it was when the plan was written.
No Advisor Is Currently on the Plan
Someone needs to be watching the plan even when nothing seems to be going wrong.
As the plan sponsor, you carry fiduciary liability whether or not anyone is actively managing it. An advisor on the plan shares that responsibility and helps keep it on track.
Undocumented decisions are one of the most common issues found in a plan audit. A simple paper trail protects you if the plan is ever reviewed.
Nobody Provides Employee Education or Enrollment Support
A plan only works as well as the people using it.
If lower paid employees aren't participating, it can limit how much owners and highly compensated employees are allowed to contribute under nondiscrimination testing.
Most employees default to whatever percentage they're auto-enrolled at and never revisit it. A little education goes a long way toward better outcomes for your team.
Nobody Talks to Employees Who Leave
Departing employees are one of the most overlooked parts of running a plan.
Former employees' accounts often stay in the plan by default, quietly adding administrative fees and complexity for years after they've left.
Without guidance, many departing employees simply cash out, triggering taxes and penalties, instead of rolling the balance over. A quick conversation at exit prevents that.
Compliance Red Flags
These are the issues that tend to surface on a Form 5500 and are worth addressing before they draw attention.
Corrective distributions usually mean the plan failed a nondiscrimination test. It's fixable, and worth understanding why it happened so it doesn't repeat next year.
A fidelity bond is required to protect the plan against theft or mismanagement. Missing or insufficient coverage is a common and easy to fix compliance gap.
Late filings can trigger penalties from the DOL and IRS. If this has happened, there are correction programs available, but sooner is always better than later.
Your Business Is Changing
Growth and structural change are two of the most common triggers for a plan review.
Combining businesses can trigger controlled group rules that affect who must be covered under your plan. This is worth reviewing before the deal closes, not after.
Once a plan crosses roughly 100 participants, it typically requires an annual audit. Growing companies should plan ahead for this added cost and requirement.
A safe harbor plan design can simplify or eliminate certain nondiscrimination testing, which is often appealing as a company grows and testing gets more complicated.
Fee and Service Uncertainty
If you can't answer these questions today, that's the reason to call.
Plan fees are often spread across several line items and can be hard to see clearly without someone walking through the fee disclosure with you.
If getting a straight answer from your current provider is a struggle, that alone is a reasonable reason to explore other options.
Adding a Roth option gives employees more flexibility in how they save and can be a relatively simple plan amendment.
Not sure if it's worth a call? That's exactly what the first conversation is for. Click below to book a time on Stephen's calendar, no cost, no obligation.
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