What is a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC)?
Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) is the "Advanced Financial Planning" designation conferred by The American College of Financial Services.
The ChFC professional is qualified to assist individuals, professionals, and small-business owners with comprehensive financial planning, including insurance, income taxation, retirement planning, investments, and estate planning.
The ChFC curriculum provides the most extensive education of the widely recognized financial planning designations, requiring nine courses, each of which is followed by an exam. Six of the nine courses are the same courses required for a CFP candidate; therefore, one who passes their CFP certification exam can, in many cases, go on to earn their ChFC by successfully completing the three additional courses and exams.
People enlist the help of a financial planning professional because of the complexity of performing the following:
- Providing financial security and ensuring that all goals of personal finance are met
- Finding direction and meaning in one's financial decisions
- Understanding how each financial decision affects other areas of finance
- Adapting to life changes to feel more financially secure
The best results of working with a comprehensive financial planner, from an individual client or family's perspective are:
- To create the greatest probability that all financial goals (anything requiring both money and planning to achieve) are accomplished by the target date, and
- To have a frequently-updated sensible plan that is proactive enough to accommodate any major unexpected financial event that could negatively affect the plan, and
- To make intelligent financial choices along the way (whether to "buy or lease" whether to "refinance or pay-off" etc.).
- Institute for Divorce Financial Analyst
Before working with a comprehensive financial planner, a client should establish that the planner is competent and worthy of trust, and will act in the client's interests rather than being primarily interested in selling the client financial products for her own benefit. As the relationship unfolds, an individual financial planning client's objective in working with a comprehensive financial planner is to clearly understand what needs to be done to implement the financial plan created for them.
Financial planning should cover all areas of the client's financial needs and should result in the achievement of each of the client's goals.
The scope of planning would usually include the following:
- Risk Management and Insurance Planning - Managing cash flow risks through sound risk management and insurance techniques.
- Investment and Planning Issues - Planning, creating and managing capital accumulation to generate future capital and cash flows for reinvestment and spending.
- Retirement Planning - Planning to ensure financial independence at retirement including 401Ks, IRAs etc.
- Tax Planning - Planning for the reduction of tax liabilities and the freeing-up of cash flows for other purposes.
- Estate Planning - Planning for the creation, accumulation, conservation and distribution of assets.
- Cash Flow and Liability Management - Maintaining and enhancing personal cash flows through debt and lifestyle management.
- Relationship Management - Moving beyond pure product selling to understand and service the core needs of the client.
- Education Planning for kids and the family members.
Don't miss your opportunity for a free consultation with a Chartered Financial Consultant today and evaluate your financial planning needs!