If you’ve been hunting around our website recently, you might have noticed a link to our Client Relationship Summary (Form CRS).  This new regulatory document helps investors answer the question, “Is Hill Investment Group the right investment advisor for me?” It’s aimed at anyone who is curious how we can help. 

In our opinion, it’s a great move by regulators. It makes important information about advisors and broker-dealers crystal-clear, like fees, services, disciplinary information, and their fiduciary obligation (audio clip). As an existing or prospective client, we encourage you to check it out. You might learn something about us you didn’t know before, maybe even ways in which we can be more helpful to you!

We work for our clients. It’s that simple. We value the work of our partner firms (mutual fund companies and custodians), but we never forget who we serve and our fiduciary duty to them. To that end, you should know we routinely ask our partners for better options and lower fees – when and where appropriate. Hill Investment Group is pleased to announce significant fee reductions related to 14 funds in our recommended portfolios. The largest reduction is a 20% drop in fund expenses and the smallest change is 3.6% in one of our fixed-income solutions. Big or small alterations, it’s good news and savings for clients. We will not list individual funds here, but look forward to sharing the details with you during your next review. For now, we end this post with a quote from Dimensional Co CEO Gerard O’Reilly:

“We expect to do better than benchmarks and peers, after fees, so we fight for every basis point. We continue to gain insights from research and innovate across all aspects of our process.” 

One of the services we provide for our clients is social security optimization. We like for you to get the maximum benefit from the system you’ve paid into for most of your life. For as much bad publicity as the Social Security Administration receives, it does oversee one of the few guaranteed programs backed by the federal government. Social security may not be the primary source of one’s income but it can provide a stable stream in retirement.

REMINDER: It is important to ensure your benefits reflect what you’ve earned over your working life.

In an attempt to reduce costs, the Social Security Administration has greatly curtailed the number of statements mailed each year and encourages workers to check their information online. In fact, for people under 60 the SSA no longer mails statements and only allows users to view their information online. We recommend that all individuals establish an online account and check it annually. This allows you to see your estimated benefits at different ages as well as provides an opportunity to safeguard against identity theft and fraud by checking your earnings history.

To review your Social Security information, go to www.ssa.gov to set up your personal account.