Risk management is a fancy term people in financial services use to talk about insurance. At UPstream, it is more than that. It is truly about understanding the risks you have in your life and deciding whether you are comfortable with them or not. It's that simple. We have all heard about the risk of disability or dying prematurely, but there are far more risks than that. What about the risk of outliving your money or the risk of divorce, legislation and tax changes, or even the need to care for aging parents or kids who don't want to move out? Our goal is to help you think through all of the things that might impact your financial decisions and decide together if they are manageable risks. The process is easy, it's the decisions that are hard.

• What risks exist in my current financial plan?
• Am I comfortable with the risk and the impact it might have?
• If yes, great, you have the knowledge and the risk is no longer scary.
• If no, we can work together to find ways to offset that risk.

Education

Sometimes our help is really just about educating you in areas where you have been given bad information or no information. According to LIMRA:

• 83% of consumers say that they don't purchase more life insurance because it's too expensive, but consumers believe life insurance costs nearly 3 times the actual price.
• $400: What most Americans believe a 20-year, $250,000 level term life policy for a healthy 30-year-old cost annually.
• $150: What it would actually cost.

Identifying Risks	Risk Retention	Risk Transference
Knowledge is Power The first step in risk management is to identify where your plan has pitfalls so that you can make a plan to deal with them. What if your business is sued? What if your spouse dies prematurely? What if you are no longer able to do your job? These are all of	Some risks are ok Once you know what risks you have, you can mitigate them through planning using things like asset titling and trusts. You could also choose to just explain to all impacted in your family or business so that the emotion tied to them is diffused, and everyone knows the plan in case an unexpected event happens.	When is it too much? You've worked hard to gather the money you have for retirement, so maybe it is too big of a chance to leave it all exposed to market fluctuations. Maybe you don't want to have to worry about what would happen to your family if you were suddenly gone. These are times when it makes sense to let someone else take on the risk for you.

---

How can we help?

We treat every client as an individual and will meet with you to see exactly where you have needs. For some clients, we end up doing a full financial plan to help with all of the steps mentioned above. For some, you know you need to purchase insurance of some kind and we help you with the decision of what type, how much, and how to pay for it. Whatever your circumstance, our commitment is to help you right where you are.

The best part is that there is not a charge to get together and talk about your concerns. If we can help, great, if not, we will give you as much information as possible and you've risked nothing by taking the time to talk. Our goal is to help you accomplish yours, whatever that may look like in your life. Just give us a call and let us help.