Meet Richard Harrison
Welcome to Gulf Harbor Financial. Whether you’re just starting your retirement planning journey or are well into retirement, we provide a comprehensive planning approach, empowering you to take control of your own retirement. We are committed to our client families’ success and protecting their estate from unnecessary risks.
Get in touch at info@gulfharborfinancial.com.
(239) 580-6806
3201 Tamiami Trail North, Suite 129
Naples, FL 34103
We are an independent Fiduciary Advisor representing a select group of families, acting as accountability partners. We help our families realize their financial goals by developing and monitoring a plan to keep them on course while keeping everyone’s emotions in check.
We are a boutique firm with the ability to make researched backed decisions, serving our families in a world class way, maintaining our advantage over large, impersonal, one-size-fits-all firms.
We report to you periodically, review your financial and life situation, and adjust advice and recommendations as your life changes. Using the best institutional money managers, we take you directly to the manufacturer in a totally new and transparent way. We focus on principal preservation and income driven investing.
SERVICES
Together, we create a customized strategy implementing wealth management, retirement income planning, estate planning and insurance planning. The advisory team at Gulf Harbor Financial helps you implement the best solutions within the context of your overall situation.
We follow a Wealth Management formula, encompassing not only Investment Consultation, but Advanced Planning and Relationship Management.
Investment Consultation means optimizing a family’s asset allocation. Many advisory firms focus on this aspect exclusively.
Advanced Planning means making even smarter decisions about money, mitigating taxes, providing for heirs, protecting assets from being unjustly taken from litigation or divorce, and magnifying charitable gifts to have the most impact.
Relationship Management means coordinating a professional network to hire the best A players, such as an Attorney, CPA and Insurance Professional. We take the lead in ensuring these team members are all working together to serve our families at the highest level.
Our Wealth Management formula allows us to help our families develop their own unique Life of Significance, taking care of the people they love, taking care of their important causes, and making a difference in the world.
Wealth Management
It’s estimated you’ll need at least 80% of your pre-retirement income to live comfortably during retirement. That’s why it is essential your investments – stocks, bonds, mutual funds, income from other sources (perhaps rental property or an inheritance) perform in a way that supports the lifestyle you want.
Our wealth advisors will work with you to create an investment plan that generates income and preserves your capital. Large portfolio losses and having to play “catch up” with our investments in retirement can keep us from doing, having and experiencing the things we want when we retire. A series of poor annual returns early in retirement can have a long-lasting negative impact on a portfolio.
This is why it is vital – based on your time horizon and risk profile – that you have a plan to protect and preserve your wealth from market downturns, and provide a conservative, but meaningful, return on your investments.
Retirement Income Planning
As more Americans are living longer, achieving the financial independence you want in retirement may take more than Pensions, Social Security and Savings. The wealth management team at Gulf Harbor Financial works with you to plan when to withdraw income and from which portfolio accounts, how to adjust for inflation, and which withdrawal strategies ensure your savings will last.
Having a personalized income plan in retirement can help ensure you have financial support for the risks you may face in retirement. These include unexpected health care and long-term care costs, inflation, longevity (the risk that you’ll outlive your retirement nest egg), severe market losses and other unexpected expenses. The lifestyle you want to experience and financially maintain during retirement makes it so important you have an income plan that can generate consistent, predictable income for the rest of your life.
Estate Planning
Now is the time to begin planning to achieve the vision you have for the legacy you want to create. This proactive planning helps secure the financial future of your family and the charitable causes you hold dear. Along with an estate planning attorney, the fiduciary advisors at Gulf Harbor Financial will create an estate plan that prepares for potential health-related incapacitation and final transfer of your wealth in the most tax-efficient way.
Our estate planning will incorporate your current family dynamics and special relationships, so your assets are directed to those beneficiaries who are truly a part of your legacy, in the time frame you specify. Having an estate plan in place helps minimize taxes, so your beneficiaries receive as full a value for your estate as the tax code allows. We can also incorporate a charitable plan within your overall estate plan, so those causes you care about most will benefit from your philanthropic vision.
The Florida Retirement System & The FRS Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP)
Gulf Harbor Financial is an advisory council member of the DROP Advisory Council. Member firms are selected for their experience and knowledge of the Florida Retirement System (FRS), the FRS Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) and retirement financial planning.
When you enter DROP, you are considered Retired and you stop earning retirement service credits. While participating in DROP, your monthly retirement benefits accumulate in the FRS Trust Fund, earning tax-deferred interest while you continue to work for an FRS employer.
When your DROP participation ends, we are available to assist you with your pension options, health insurance choices, 457b and 403b plans, and sick pay accounts. We can also help you determine the exact amount in your Florida Retirement System (FRS) retirement account and calculate your benefits, including DROP benefits. We can offer you safe solutions to protect your DROP money from market loss. Our strategies can also provide you with a paycheck for life, like your Pension and Social Security payments. We will design a customized plan for you that takes into account your retirement income and liquidity needs and expenses. We can also help you avoid a taxable distribution by designing a creative IRA rollover solution.
Health Insurance
One of the top risks people face in retirement is an unexpected medical expense and rising costs of prescription drugs. Medicare doesn’t cover all of these expenses, so our retirement planning specialists may recommend strategies to help offset these costs if they do occur.
These strategies may also include potential coverage needs for long-term care (LTC) – a big risk to your financial well-being if you require care and don’t have a plan in place to pay for these costs. Medicare only covers medically necessary care and focuses on medical acute care, such as doctor visits, drugs, and hospital stays. And it doesn’t pay the largest part of long-term care services or personal care – like basic daily living activities.
Factoring in strategies to cover health-care and LTC costs to your financial and retirement plan makes sense. On the financial risk management side, it helps protect your assets and avoids having to spend down your retirement nest egg to qualify for care from the state. What’s more, insurance products and other financial strategies mean you get to choose the type of care you want to receive and won’t become a burden to other family members who may have to step in, if needed, to assist with your care.
Life Insurance
The primary purpose of life insurance is to provide death benefit coverage and legacy benefits for your loved ones. And that benefit is left to your heirs tax-free. But did you also know that life insurance can provide tax-efficient retirement income, help fund long-term care and other medical expenses, and even pay for a child or grandchild’s education?
In addition, depending on your financial situation, life insurance can be used to fund a portion of your retirement income – even while you are still working – by providing you with the ability to save tax-deferred dollars above what the government allows you to contribute into your 401(k) or IRA. Similar options are available for business owners who seek a tax-efficient exit or transfer of their business.
The funds that grow tax-deferred in the indexed or investment account of a life insurance policy in general are not subject to the same RMD rules as that of qualified accounts. You may also be able to access the cash value to take out policy loans without any tax penalties – if properly structured and under certain circumstances.
ABOUT
Richard Harrison, CFP®, CEP®, Fiduciary Advisor grew up in a military family, knowing the value of loyalty, dedication, and sacrifice. Richard traveled extensively in his youth and experienced a variety of cultures and customs while living abroad and stateside on various Air Force bases with his parents. His father’s final duty station took them to the Mojave Desert of Southern California. Richard had a normal childhood, growing up with two loving parents, playing football and basketball and working part time in hotel food service.
Richard earned his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from San Diego State University, with a major in finance. His dreams of working as a financial analyst were dashed by the recession of early 1990’s and he entered into a management training program with a large regional drug store chain. Richard advanced quickly and became one of the youngest managers in the company. After many years of corporate retail drug, he had an opportunity to pursue his dreams and finally began his financial services career as a Financial Advisor in Los Angeles, California.
Richard is married to Clare and is father to three wonderful kids: Vincent, Lauren, and Timothy. Richard stays active by riding his bicycle, jogging and walking on the beautiful beaches of Southwest Florida. He serves on the Board of Directors of his church as Treasurer and leads a small bible discussion group with Clare.
Richard is a student of the game and is constantly seeking knowledge and further understanding of the financial markets. Keeping abreast of world events and staying in tune with the markets is truly his passion. In addition to his FINRA Series 65 Fiduciary Advisor license and Life & Health Insurance license, Richard continually pursues higher levels of education, earning the marks of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™, CERTIFIED ESTATE PLANNER ™, Registered IRS PTIN Tax Professional and Florida Notary Public. Richard has formerly served on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, as Secretary and Treasurer.
Clare Harrison, Operations Manager was born on a small island in the British West Indies, while her family lived their temporarily. Upon leaving the Caribbean and returning to the US, her family settled in the San Fernando Valley, of Southern California. Clare attended private Catholic school, played a variety of sports, and was a Sea Scout.
Clare earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Geography from the University of Nevada, Reno and then returned to the San Fernando Valley. Clare worked as a teacher aide in a private school and volunteered as a Sea Scout leader.
After marrying Richard, Clare became a full time Mother for the next fifteen years. Clare has since obtained her Life and Health Insurance license and Florida Notary Public commission, so she could better assist the Gulf Harbor teams.
Clare enjoys reading, boating and traveling to historic and geographically significant destinations.
VIDEOS
FRS MEMBERS
FRS HIS-1
FRS DP-TERM
FRS DP-PAYT
IRS W-4P
RETIREMENT PREPARATION
IRS W-4V
CFP
Bungee
Surgery
CHARITY
Some of the charities we support:
CONTACT
Gulf Harbor Financial, Inc.
3201 Tamiami Trail North, Suite 129
Naples, FL 34103
(239) 580-6806