Our Fees

Ulivi Wealth Management is strictly an independent, fee-only, financial planning and investment management firm. The firm does not sell annuities, insurance, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, limited partnerships, or other commissioned products. The firm is not affiliated with entities that sell financial products or securities. We do not accept finder’s fees or commissions in any form. We are paid directly by our clients and we provide full disclosure of our fees before we are hired.

We give you the option of hiring us to design strategies only, in which case you are in charge of the execution, or you can delegate the implementation and ongoing management of the strategies to us.

No Implementation

The fee for either our Retirement Income Strategy and/or Investment Strategy ranges from $1,500 to $4,000 depending on the complexity of planning and the value of the services rendered. This fee includes the design and meeting times to review the strategies but not their implementation. We will quote a specific fee for you once we understand the scope of services to be provided. These fees may be waived in full, or on a partial basis, at the discretion of the advisor, for those who engage us for our implementation services.

Implementation Services

You can select either or both of the following:

Monitoring Service

This includes the implementation and management of your Retirement Income Strategy and your Investment Strategy, as well as the Investment Management service.

Investment Management

This service is part of the Monitoring Service but is also available to those individuals who, for one reason or another, do not need a Retirement Income Strategy. It implements and manages your Investment Strategy on an ongoing basis.

The fee for either service consists of the following:

One time account set-up fee: This fee is a one-time charge of $1,250 which is assessed upon signing the agreement. This fee makes a contribution towards setting up the account (s) in our record keeping system and at the Custodian. This fee may be waived at the discretion of the advisor, in particular, if the client has already paid a fee for the development of an Investment Strategy.

Ongoing management fee: This fee will be based on the sliding scale below, which is dependent on the number of portfolios under management.

The minimum level of assets to be managed is $200,000 and the minimum annual fee is $2,000 for investment management services. The level of assets and the fee minimums are negotiable or may be waived at our discretion. Our services will be billed quarterly, in arrears, either to the Custodian or the Client.

Our Monitoring and our Investment Management services include the following at NO additional cost:

Total access on any arising financial issue.

This means that a client has nearly unlimited access to us during the retainer period. For example, we do not charge extra in the years when a client experiences a significant life event such as retirement or divorce.

No hourly charges during the retainer period.

We charge a retainer fee; one fee covers all our planning and recommendations. We encourage our clients to consult with us before they make any financial decisions.

Surviving spouse extended benefit.

In the event of the death of one of our clients, the surviving spouse and/or family members can turn to us for guidance through the estate settlement process and continue with the family’s financial planning.

No product sales.

We do not receive any compensation from the sale of any products we may recommend, therefore eliminating a prime source of biased advice. We want to minimize potential conflicts of interest.

Full disclosure of fees.

We get paid directly by our clients; nothing is hidden so clients are aware of what our fees are at all times.

Can You Justify Your Fee for the Investment Management and/or Monitoring Services?

Yes! The following are some of the continuous services we provide that justify our low annual fee:

We help clients follow a disciplined and consistent investment strategy.

We monitor investments on a daily basis and regularly prepare performance reports so we can evaluate their effectiveness. These reposts are in compliance with standards recommended by the Association for Investment Management Research.

We regularly meet face-to-face with our clients, or more often if desired, to review the performance of their portfolios and to discuss any changes in their investment objectives and/or investment strategy.

We keep current with changes in economic and financial conditions that may affect a client’s portfolios. We regularly attend investment conferences and read many different publications.

When we feel it is justified, we will recommend changes in the asset allocation of the portfolio in order to take advantage of changes in relative values, in the financial markets, and/ or to re-balance the portfolio.

We continuously monitor other investments to see if superior alternatives are available.

We monitor portfolios to minimize negative tax consequences. For example:

We try to avoid taking gains because of the resulting increase in income taxes.
At times we may consider taking unrealized losses if needed for tax purposes. For instance, we may sell a long bond and re-invest the proceeds for 31 days and then switch back. In effect, our position is unchanged, but the loss has been realized for tax purposes.

We provide advice that is in the client’s best interest by eliminating the conflict of interest that arises when an advisor is paid for his recommendations. We are paid on a fee-only basis, rather than on commissions from transactions. We want to be advisors, not product sales people.

For continuity purposes: If clients change advisors on a regular basis, they will be changing the composition of their portfolios and the investment philosophies that guide the selection of investments. Changing advisors can make it difficult to achieve the desired long term results and may raise costs unnecessarily.

Our clients may need an advisor when there are major changes in the markets, and they are unsure how to proceed. Our clients may not need us every time…but we’ll be there when needed.

We monitor client’s finances using our eight rules. These are:

1. Portfolio Performance: It is important to measure the performance of your investments regularly, and compare it to pre-established benchmarks. To facilitate this process, we prepare sophisticated reports, on a quarterly basis, that calculate performance in many different ways. We also meet regularly with you to explain and analyze the performance. If changes need to be made, we do so.
2. Burn Rate: If you do not want to deplete your capital, your burn rate should be zero. The higher the burn rate, the faster you will deplete your capital.
3. Funding Ratio: Funding ratio should always be 100% or higher to make sure you can meet your income needs throughout retirement.
4. Portfolio management rule: Determines the source and order of each year’s withdrawal, when returns are positive and also when they are negative.
5. Inflation Rule: Determines the size of the yearly withdrawal increase due to inflation.
6. Withdrawal Rule: Determines the conditions when portfolio withdrawals are frozen from one year to the next.
7. Capital Preservation Rule: This rule is triggered when some combination of adverse conditions causes the retiree’s current year’s withdrawal rate to have risen more than 20% above the initial withdrawal rate.
8. Prosperity Rule: Allows you to take out a bonus withdrawal under the right conditions.

In sum, is our fee justified? Yes, because we help clients maintain their lifestyle and financial security throughout retirement, which was the reason our clients came to see us in the first place.