An Introduction

Hi. Welcome to BourGroup and my blog. Phil

Phil Bour is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER(tm) professional since 2004, a Magna Cum Laude college graduate and an accounting professional for over 35+ years. I love numbers, statistics and economic history.

I am also an Enrolled Agent (EA) to represent taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service and to prepare tax returns.

"Phil"osophy: I believe that you can manage your money on your own (not necessarily through individual stock selection but through mutual funds, ETF's and other solutions) once you receive some one-time, professional guidance. Why pay annual fees when there may be little added value? For additional information, first read the "An Introduction" label at the left. Then move on to others.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Insurance Deductibles - A Risk Management Technique


An investment adviser may not be able to add value by managing your investments alone but a comprehensive financial planner may be able to add value in many ways.

Some ways are: guidance on asset allocation, where to hold your investments (tax-deferred or not), how to withdraw your assets in retirement, planning your estate documents and, in this post, how to manage risk.

Disability, life, home, umbrella, long-term care and auto policies are just some of the areas of risk management that should be visited in a planning engagement.

If you have a fully-funded emergency fund...

then...

keeping a large deductible on your auto policies can minimize your premiums. In addition, if a car is over 10 years old (or, some say, under $10,000 in value), then consider eliminating the collision coverage.

If you have substantial equity in your home (insurers may not allow you to do this otherwise)...

then...

keeping a large deductible on your home policy can minimize your premium, too.

Self-insuring (using large deductibles, for example) is often a useful risk-management technique.