Asset Protection

Asset Protection

With the ever-growing trend in America of identity theft and frivolous lawsuits, it’s crucial that you protect your personal/business information and assets. NCH can give you and your business the security to thrive.

What Is Asset Protection?

Asset protection is the process of safeguarding a person or entity’s assets from potential risks. It involves structuring assets to make them difficult or impossible for others to seize or access. Some of the common asset protection tools include trusts, limited liability companies (LLCs), and insurance policies, among others.

The goal of asset protection is to shield one’s wealth and property from any unforeseen circumstances that may lead to financial loss. Bear in mind that asset protection should not be used to evade taxes or engage in illegal activities.

The Importance of Asset Protection

Over time, we accumulate assets that we work hard to acquire. These assets can be anything from properties, investments, businesses, and bank accounts, to personal property. As valuable as these assets are, they are also vulnerable to various risks such as lawsuits, creditors, divorce, bankruptcy, and even natural disasters.

Asset protection is not just a concern for the wealthy or high-net-worth individuals but is equally important for everyone who has assets to protect and wants to ensure financial stability.

The Reality of Lawsuits

Most small businesses know that incorporating can shield personal assets in the event of a frivolous lawsuit, but many are lulled into complacency by an “it-won’t-happen-to-me” attitude. This thinking has resulted in tremendous losses to countless business owners.

The popular benefit of incorporating is the ability to legally separate personal assets from business assets by establishing a corporate veil. The corporate veil prevents lawsuits and other adverse actions against a business from targeting the business owner's personal assets.

There has never been a case in which the corporate veil has been pierced on a properly operated Nevada entity.

The Risk of Litigation

It’s a sad reality, but you will likely face a lawsuit if you’re engaged in any business activity. The costs of defense can easily reach over $100,000. Everything you’ve worked hard to create will be placed in jeopardy.

Common Lawsuits Faced by Business Owners

• Employment Lawsuits: age, racial, gender, pregnancy, disability, mental illness, and addiction discrimination, as well as sexual harassment, peer harassment, wrongful termination, employee injury, etc.
• Professional Malpractice: medical, legal, psychological, engineering, architectural, accounting, etc.
• Business Liability Lawsuits: environmental cleanup, dissatisfied customers, personal injury, shareholder liability, etc.
• Personal Lawsuits: divorce, business partners, creditor claims, accidental injury caused by a family member, personal injury, etc.

The sad truth is that when you’re perceived to have assets worth plundering, you’re more likely to be targeted for that reason rather than your degree of fault.

It used to be that only big corporations, banks, insurance institutions, and household names were targeted for lawsuits, but that’s no longer the case. New targets for litigants are those who have saved for retirement, own a home or rental property, and are sole proprietors or small business owners. It’s estimated that over 30 million people in the United States have mutual funds, savings, or own equity in their homes.

The worst part is that millions of practicing lawyers and countless others graduating from law school are looking for cases that can earn them money. Every day in court, a plaintiff prevails against a so-called “wealthy” defendant – even in cases that appear illogical, irrational, and totally devoid of merit.

Who Are the Prime Candidates for Lawsuits?

• Property owners
• Business Owners
• Officers/Directors of publicly traded companies
• Sole Proprietors
• Real Estate Investors

If you fall into any of these categories or have a retirement nest egg, you must remove any incentive for people to sue you right now!

The key is to ensure that plaintiffs and their lawyers can’t get their hands on your money because they won’t waste time and money trying.

Mitigating the Risk

Thankfully, there are various ways to transfer ownership of assets to shelter them for protection. The following is list of the devices and entities that can be used for estate and asset protection planning:

• Living Trusts
• Limited Partnerships
• Corporations & LLCs
• Family Security Trusts
• Real Estate Privacy Trusts
• Life Insurance Trusts

Protecting your assets encompasses more than just safeguarding them from lawsuits. You want to strive to protect your foundation for generations to come. Proper asset protection strategies are critical to a secure, well-protected future for you, your business, and your family.

Start Planning for Asset Protection

If you’re the victim of identity theft, it can take upwards of a month before a major bank can investigate the claim and refund the stolen dollars back into your account. That’s why corporate and asset protection for business owners is an absolute necessity. It lowers your asset profile, and keeping confidential information safely out of criminals’ reach is paramount.

At NCH, we are committed to providing a wide range of asset protection services to help safeguard your assets and personal information. Our team of experts can help you incorporate your business, establish a trust, and form an LLC.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to protect your assets.

Contact NCH today to ask about our asset protection strategies.