An investment professional provides professional expertise to the management of investment assets held in retirement accounts, trusts, individual and joint accounts.

Investment Professionals include the following:

1. Fee-Only Investment Advisor (Registered Investment Advisor Representative)

2. Investment Consultant (Registered Representative with a Stock Brokerage Firm)

The financial planning process seeks to help people use their resources to accomplish their goals. In order to improve and increase the resources entrusted to ones care, the Financial Planner can assist in this life-long process in the following ways:

1) Help people to identify the goals God has put in their heart to accomplish and then quantify how much is necessary to accomplish them.

An insurance consultant helps people find adequate amounts of insurance coverage at competitive prices. The insurance consultant may specialize in, or work for a company that specializes in certain types of insurance. It is important that the insurance consultant disclose what lines they specialize in providing.

The different types of insurance are 1) auto, 2) homeowners, 3) health, 4) life, 5) disability income protection, and 6) long term care. Most of us are not at the point where buying long-term care insurance makes sense but ask your agent at what age you should begin to consider it. Waiting too long may end up costing you.

Insurance is one of the areas of life where we would rather avoid the subject than learn all that can be known. Because it is a subject many of us do not want to research, you should be sure that you trust the insurance consultant that you choose to represent you. At the end of the transaction, you want peace of mind that he/she did what was best for you and your family and not their bank account. Here are a few questions to help you begin to interview insurance brokers.