--- title: The Importance of Stress Testing Your Wealth Strategies description: Discover the importance of stress-testing wealth strategies for individuals and families. image: https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/hubfs/SafeHarbor/Blog_Asset/Stress-Test.jpg --- 167 East Main Street, Huntington, NY 11743 [info@InvestSafeHarbor.com](mailto:info@InvestSafeHarbor.com) [(631) 421-4341](tel:(631)%20421-4341) [![Available Property Listings](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/21593960/3b103598-ae48-4c52-9462-bef9083faf87.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/21593960/3b103598-ae48-4c52-9462-bef9083faf87) [![safeharborlogo-250](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/hs-fs/hubfs/SafeHarbor/safeharborlogo-250.png?width=250&height=77&name=safeharborlogo-250.png "safeharborlogo-250")](https://investsafeharbor.com/) - [Home](https://investsafeharbor.com/) - [About Us](https://investsafeharbor.com/about/) - [Our Leadership](https://investsafeharbor.com/ourleadership/) - [Wealth Management](https://investsafeharbor.com/wealth-management/) - [1031 Exchanges](https://investsafeharbor.com/1031exchange/) - [About 1031 Exchanges](https://investsafeharbor.com/1031exchange/) - [1031 Resources](https://investsafeharbor.com/1031exchange/resources/) - [DSTs](https://investsafeharbor.com/1031exchange/dst/) - [Closed Properties](https://investsafeharbor.com/1031exchange/properties/) - [Blog](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog) - [Contact Us](https://investsafeharbor.com/contact/) - Client Login - [Available Properties Portal](https://investsafeharbor.com/properties-login/) - [Black Diamond](https://login.bdreporting.com/Auth/SignIn) [![Available Properties](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/21593960/24f1e041-ad00-435b-b932-74236070e5c9.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/21593960/24f1e041-ad00-435b-b932-74236070e5c9) ![Stress-Test](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/hubfs/SafeHarbor/Blog_Asset/Stress-Test.jpg) [Professional Advisors](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/professional-advisors) | [Wealth](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/wealth) | [Insurance](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/insurance) | [Investments](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/investments) [Ana Reano](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/author/safeharbor) Jun 17, 2020  0  comments - - - - [mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Fblog.investsafeharbor.com%2Fblog%2Fthe-importance-of-stress-testing-your-wealth-strategies%20&body=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Fblog.investsafeharbor.com%2Fblog%2Fthe-importance-of-stress-testing-your-wealth-strategies](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Fblog.investsafeharbor.com%2Fblog%2Fthe-importance-of-stress-testing-your-wealth-strategies%20&body=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Fblog.investsafeharbor.com%2Fblog%2Fthe-importance-of-stress-testing-your-wealth-strategies) # The Importance of Stress Testing Your Wealth Strategies When making decisions about your money, it can be smart to know the steps that extremely affluent individuals and families take to grow and protect their significant wealth. Take stress testing, for example. Stress testing is a process that carefully examines your current wealth planning strategies to assess the likelihood that they’ll deliver the results you expect them to in various environments and situations. The Super Rich (people with a net worth of $500 Million or more) often have stress tests conducted because the tests enable them to make smart decisions, to verify that they likely will get what they want and to confirm they are dealing with the right professionals. They can also be effective at identifying potential big problems, or possible huge mistakes, so changes can be made proactively. The good news: You don’t have to be outrageously wealthy to benefit from a stress test. In fact, we believe it should be part of most people’s due process when vetting financial plans, products and services. In addition to identifying potential missteps in an existing plan or service, it may be able to deliver some peace of mind to the client when the test confirms that a plan is indeed on track. **How Stress Testing Works** 1. **Profiling:** The process starts with discovery. What are your specific goals and concerns? What problems do you want to solve? What opportunities are you seeking to benefit from? 2. **Solution Evaluation:** Once there is clarity about your goals, objectives, concerns and limitations, various strategies or products can be assessed. There are numerous ways to dissect and evaluate solutions, including: **\*Working the Assumptions:** The assumptions underlying the strategies or products are systematically modified to determine how they are likely to work when the “what if’s” of the scenario change. **\*Evaluating Alignment with Goals and Objectives:** It’s essential to determine whether the strategies and products likely will accomplish your goals and objectives. A solution might be high quality but still not deliver the specific results you want or need. 3. **Analytic Comparisons:** Based on the evaluation, alternative solutions might be considered. It can be very useful to conduct analytic side-by-side comparisons of the solutions. 4. **Recommendations:** At the conclusion of stress testing, recommendations are presented and considered, and the next course of action is decided on. **Stress Test Trends Among Advisors** Because of the power of stress testing, leading professionals are increasingly making it a cornerstone of the way they work with individuals and families. Consider that a sizable majority-76.8 percent-of 181 senior executives at multifamily offices (organizations that serve wealthy families) call stress tests an important deliverable for their clients.\* By and large, we see those stress tests being focused primarily on investment management solutions, with other areas like life insurance and wealth planning getting attention to varying degrees. In our view, this intensive focus on investment management may be too limiting. For example, while just around 40% of the executives have stress tested clients’ life insurance, a full 64.4% of those execs uncovered problems that required corrective actions. This doesn’t surprise us. Many affluent families purchase life insurance to address estate tax concerns. Sometimes, life insurance is obtained to create a larger estate or to make a charitable gift at death. Other times, the intent is to benefit from the tax-free internal buildup. But it’s common that some of these affluent families end up with amounts of life insurance that exceed their wants and needs. Additionally, their life insurance may be poorly structured. When life insurance portfolios are not in sync with wealth planning strategies, trouble can occur down the road. This suggests that stress tests should be widely applied to other areas of clients’ financial lives. **Growing In Importance** It’s reasonable to expect stress testing to garner more interest and attention among clients and their advisors, as evidenced by the fact that more than 80% of the executives said these tests will become more important going forward (see chart). ![survey on wealth plan stress testing](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/hubfs/SafeHarbor/Blog_Asset/Stress.jpg) **More Access** Stress testing, once a feature available mainly to the wealthiest among us, is increasingly being offered to a broader range of individuals and families. As a result, you may have an opportunity to put your financial and legal strategies and plans through their paces and determine if they’re set-up to deliver the results you want. ***Next Step:*** Reach out to your financial and/or legal professional to see if a stress test would be a good idea.   *ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This article was published by the VFO Inner Circle, a global financial concierge group working with affluent individuals and families and is distributed with its permission. Copyright 2020 by AES Nation, LLC.* #### Tags: [Professional Advisors](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/professional-advisors) [Wealth](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/wealth) [Insurance](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/insurance) [Investments](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/tag/investments) ![The Four Types of Financial Advisors](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/hubfs/SafeHarbor/Blog_Asset/DoctorPatient.jpg) #### [What to Do When Your Doctor Has Bad News](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/what-to-do-when-your-doctor-has-bad-news) #### [The Four Types of Financial Advisors](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/blog/the-four-types-of-financial-advisors) ![The Four Types of Financial Advisors](https://blog.investsafeharbor.com/hubfs/SafeHarbor/Blog_Asset/Happy-Employees.jpg) #### Popular Posts ![Two Stories About AI. 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