Jerry Van Houten, AIF, CKA • Modesto, CA
American Asset & Wealth Management • Independent Financial Group LLC
Read full biography below

Proactive Advisor Magazine: Jerry, what was your path to becoming a financial advisor?

After high school, I took several courses in business and accounting. This prompted my interest in exploring the financial-services industry as a career. I started out in consultative insurance sales, primarily to individuals but also to some degree with businesses. The founder of the first company I worked for was known for his successful sales strategies, as well as for philanthropy and promoting values such as optimism, integrity, and initiative. As someone who has always had strong faith-based values, it was appealing to have that underlying philosophy behind the company. Then and now, I have always believed in serving people by putting their needs first.

“I have always believed in serving people by putting their needs first.”

After several years of working for different general agencies, I saw the industry was starting to change. My closest associates and I saw the importance of expanding beyond insurance and obtained our securities licenses in order to more fully address a range of clients’ financial needs. I don’t think that evolution has ever stopped, as I continue to stay on top of the latest trends, products, and client-centric financial solutions in the industry. Our firm specializes in comprehensive financial planning, providing guidance in areas such as tax strategies; investment management; retirement- and college-funding strategies; estate planning and conservation; insurance, annuities, and risk management; and Social Security, Medicare, long-term care, and mortgage planning. Where needed, I work with trusted third-party professionals on behalf of the client, including CPAs, attorneys, and Medicare and health-care specialists.

Our firm recently moved to a new broker-dealer, and I am very pleased with their approach to facilitating communications and access to their services. They are helpful and independent, provide access to the services of many investment management firms, and do not have specific proprietary products. This enables us to have the freedom to educate clients on a wide range of potential financial solutions and provide only those that best serve their needs. As an Accredited Investment Fiduciary and Certified Kingdom Advisor, I am committed to providing high standards of integrity and professionalism in all of my efforts on behalf of clients.

Talk about your approach to financial planning.

My protocol with almost every client, whether it’s primarily investment management or a comprehensive financial or retirement plan, is to have what we call a priority planning review. We take a holistic approach, learning about their family, hearing how they identify their goals and future dreams, and finding out how they might define an attractive retirement or future lifestyle scenario. This first step of understanding the client is both a qualitative review of their financial and life priorities and also a quantitative assessment of their current financial planning and investments, if any, and their financial balance sheet. From there, I help them identify their risk profile and educate them on how that may impact every aspect of their financial plan, not just investments. I also want to make sure they understand the time frames we are considering in developing their financial plan and what to expect broadly based on their risk tolerance. This initial phase is very comprehensive, and it is not unusual for clients to discover important objectives they may not even have considered prior to going through the priority planning review.

Once we are on the same page in terms of goals, priorities, and specific concerns, we will develop customized strategies that are suitable for meeting the clients’ objectives. In this part of the process, I use sophisticated software to examine various planning assumptions and scenarios. I am able to offer clients alternative approaches, and I thoroughly discuss the pros and cons of each approach and how it fits in with their overall objectives. When we agree on their personalized investment portfolio and the other important aspects of their financial plan, we move into the implementation phase. This varies for each client and is a step-by-step road map to executing their priorities. It can include items such as creating a revocable living trust, optimizing Social Security claiming strategies, or revamping their life insurance and risk-management strategies. Our process is flexible for each client, and we conduct appropriate progress reviews and updates on a schedule that meets their needs.

Describe your broad investment philosophy.

Every client’s custom investment approach is determined by their financial goals, time frame, and risk tolerance. Broadly speaking, I believe in having an appropriately diversified investment approach for each client that emphasizes mitigating portfolio risk and volatility. Our recommendations generally reflect diversification by both asset classes and specific strategies and are formulated only after a thorough review of how they align with the client’s objectives.

Over more than a decade, I have become a firm believer in the value of third-party investment management and the theory and practice of disciplined active investment management versus a buy-and-hold passive approach. While we may occasionally use different investment management firms for different clients, I lean toward one manager who employs rules-based strategies driven by market indicators across a full range of asset classes and sectors. This is an algorithmic and dynamic risk-managed approach that seeks to take advantage of opportunities in different market environments and attempts to mitigate large drawdowns in periods of market stress. In 2008, their approach performed in line with this philosophy in an impressive fashion, and they followed up in 2009 by taking advantage of the market’s recovery. Does everything fire on all cylinders all of the time? Absolutely not. But that is why we employ multiple strategies and look to performance over full market cycles, not short-term monthly or quarterly performance.

One other important aspect of my investment approach is having the ability to provide clients with risk-managed investment solutions that can align not only with their financial goals but also their values and convictions. This might be implemented in terms of a faith-based investment approach or one that is focused on socially responsible investments—or some combination of the two. As a Certified Kingdom Advisor, I am also trained to serve clients who are seeking values-based advice throughout the development of their financial plan. Two areas where this comes into focus can be in helping clients manage their ongoing charitable giving in a tax-efficient manner and in the development of their estate planning. Kingdom Advisors also provides access to a network of like-minded professionals in other disciplines—for example, lawyers, accountants, and real estate professionals. This can help provide further consistency across the implementation of a faith- or values-focused financial plan.

How would you describe your overall mission in working with clients and developing a strong relationship?

One of the first questions I always ask of any new client is, “What are your expectations of me as your financial guide?” My goal then is to exceed those expectations. I try to do this by helping my clients make well-informed financial and life decisions in a highly collaborative fashion.

For each client, I want to deliver advice and guidance that can make a difference in their lives, adding value at each stage of the financial- and investment-planning process. Building a personal relationship with all of my clients is very important to me, as is providing continuing financial education—whether in our periodic meetings and phone conversations or through our educational email campaigns.

The bottom line is that I strive to be the kind of trustworthy financial advisor whose ethics and character are always consistent with the high standards I would employ in working with my own family members. I want to help clients create enough wealth to secure the resources to live a life with no regrets—a life that is consistent with their values and reflects their highest aspirations.