Case Studies
Our clients have unique backgrounds and include small business owners, career changers, pre-retirees, and retirees. Our diverse client base has prepared us to handle financial scenarios based on each client's needs, hopes, and desires. Two particular areas of expertise include the use of Health Savings Accounts to address the health/wealth challenge as well as working with cross-border families.
Cross Border Families
One of our Co-founders, Lauris, has extensive international experience, having lived, studied and worked in multiple countries across the globe. Therefore, part of RWA’s expertise is assisting “cross-border families”, or families that have financial roots in both the United States and elsewhere across the globe. It’s becoming increasingly commonplace for families to have deep financial connections outside of the United States.
Cross-border clients represent a wide variety of ages, nationalities, customs, backgrounds and stories. We use our deep expertise in this area to allow you to better prepare for the variety of tax, real estate, investment and other financial laws and regulations. While we do not provide formal tax or legal advice, we bring specialist accountants, attorneys and other experts to be part of the team working on your behalf.
HSA guidance or "Wealth Care"
It’s no secret that healthcare costs are rising painfully fast, having grown 7.4% a year since 2001, significantly more than the rate of inflation. Over time, these staggering costs can really add up. Research indicates that an average 65-year- old couple will face over $365K in medical care premiums and other out-of- pocket expenses during retirement.
To help our clients address this painful situation, we specialize in integrating your health and wealth needs, what we call your “wealth care”. One tool we use is a Health Savings Account (“HSA”). This triple tax-advantaged account lets you contribute, invest, and distribute funds on a tax-free basis for qualified health care expenses. As health care-related costs represent the largest expense in retirement, it is critical that people set aside a sufficient amount for this, lest they end up not being able to get the level of medical care they need, when they most need it.
HSA’s can be a particularly effective tool for younger workers who have decades until retirement and have relatively few current health care expenses. They should view these HSA accounts as being just as important to their long-term well-being as their 401(k), helping them to better prepare for retirement’s heavy healthcare burden. One key HSA advantage is that these accounts are portable, meaning that they can easily be transferred from one job to another, unlike other alternative tax-advantaged health care plans and benefits.
While using an HSA can be a great strategy, it does present some complexity in financial planning. Those who want to take Social Security or Medicare should be particularly aware of the impact this decision has on their use of an HSA. Additionally, the type of insurance plan you choose can affect HSA account eligibility, as only those with a HDHP (High Deductible Health Plan) can enroll in an HSA.
We will navigate you through this health and wealth puzzle by helping you on topics like HSA investments, distribution strategies, and its use with Social Security and Medicare, among other challenges.