Financial planning for doctors are chiefly exclusive

Medical profession was, is and will prevail to be a noble profession. It is a matter of immense pride and honor for anyone to be a successful doctor. As medical practitioners, you are accustomed to long hours, including weekends and night shifts. The magnitude of change you, as a doctor, can give rise to through your efforts in serving humanity are exemplary. Personal finance, being an important part in life, is not taught in schools and colleges. Just like any other professionals, you’ll agree that financial planning for doctors is of paramount importance. Unawareness about personal finance puts you at risk while taking financial decisions. Therefore, as Financial Advisor in Kolkata, we focus in providing unbiased comprehensive financial planning and investment advisory services to empower our clients in making timely and constructive financial decisions in their lives.

Doctors’ Career Life Cycle

Acquiring doctor’s degree is result of years of hard work in academics and followed by quite a few years of training. Usually, the doctors’ practice life cycles begin between 25 to 35 years. Their peak earning phase may be between 36 to 55 years. Thereafter, their practice may increase but at diminishing rate from 56 to 65 years. Doctors have the advantage of continuing their practice for as long as possible, but it is totally subjective. It depends on his/her reputation, financial situation, mental and physical health.  Although the above cycle is subjective, it may differ from one doctor to another.

Our Experience in doing financial planning for doctors

33% of our client base comprises of doctors. Doctors are specialist in the field of medical sciences. They need to keep updating their skills and engage themselves in continuous education. As a result, doctors are unable to find time to manage their personal finances. They become the targets of bank relationship managers and distributors of investment and insurance products. Due to lack of unbiased guidance, doctors end up buying costly insurance policies and random investment products. As Certified Financial Planner in Kolkata, we have been engaged in doing financial planning for doctors. Our purpose has been to take our clients through unique financial planning processes with the intention to pave their path towards financial well-being.

Doctors advise patients to undergo medical examinations in order to determine the course of treatment and writes the prescription according to patient’s conditions. Similarly, as Financial Advisor, we use distinctive financial planning tools to comprehend client’s unique financial and personal concerns as per his/her financial situations. It is our responsibility to provide solutions in client’s best interest and enable him/her to take rational financial decisions in life.

Like other professionals, doctors have financial goals like buying real estate properties, building a sizable retirement corpus, making provision for children’s education and marriage, funds for annual vacations, etc., the required funds depend on inflation, number of years i.e. investment time horizon, expected rate of return etc. Do you know how much fund you need and when will you need the fund for each of your goals? Are you investing on the basis of your financial goals separately? Assumptions are based on personal and macroeconomic factors. 

Doctors take tremendous work-load. As a result, few intend to pre-pone their retirement, lead a relaxed life and pursue their hobbies. Unless they can accumulate the predefined corpus of aforesaid requirements, they neither can stop their professional practice, nor can they terminate or break-off their investments. Therefore, as SEBI Registered Investment Advisor in Kolkata, we set quality meetings with our doctor clients to understand their expectations, define their life-goals and rationally work on them together. Following a structured approach in addressing their needs, gives our doctor clients peace of mind.

Technical and qualitative aspects of financial planning

Your Financial Plan is your road-map. If you have a clear road-map, you can reach your destination smoothly. Similarly, if you have a financial road map, you can visualize your financial goals & aspirations of life and achieve them steadily. Financial planning is colossal concept. The technical and qualitative aspects of financial planning include the following:

• Establishing an enduring relationship.
• Understanding the client’s specific needs.
• Analysis of present financial situation of the family.
• Building a strong foundation through insurance planning and contingency planning.
• Budgeting.
• Family cash flow planning (can be considered life blood of financial planning).
• Debt planning.
• Visualizing, defining and setting financial goals for the family.
• Designing investment strategies to achieve the time-bound financial goals.
• Tax planning.
• Estate planning.

Financial planning for doctors

Practical example of financial planning for doctors

Dr. Pradip Bhattacharjee (name changed) Ophthalmologist/Eye Surgeon was looking for a Fee Only Financial Advisor in Kolkata. His current age is 46. He came to us first in 2012 at the age of 40. His wife Sima (name changed), currently 40, is a Govt. Employee. Their only son, Sudip (name changed) is 9 at present. Like many other doctors, he commented that he had messed up his personal finance.  He was sold costly insurance policies and was made to invest without any purpose in mind. He did not have control over his family’s spending pattern. He did not want to further mess up his financial situation. He was referred to us by one of our doctor clients.

As we started discussing about the fundamental aspects of personal finance and how financial planning for doctors is uniquely done, he could visualize his financial commitments and realize the importance of financial planning in life. 

We understand that doctors are really very busy, so, we hand-held him through various financial planning processes covering all the technical and qualitative aspects in order to streamline his personal finance and prepare the Financial Plan for the family. Given that he had shared few pressing financial concerns, we methodically addressed them and instilled techniques to put things in order.

We had prepared the list of action plans as per his Financial Plan which encompassed the following:

• Necessary corrective measures relating to life insurance portfolio.
• General (non-life) insurance recommendations which primarily included family’s health insurance cover, professional indemnity insurance cover, fire & earthquake policy, etc.
• Contingency planning.
• Subjective guidelines in maintaining cash flow statements including bank operations.
• Re-designing investment portfolio on the basis of product suitability matrix.
• Goal-based investment advice.
• Few other personal matters.

We have been scrupulously reviewing his Financial Plan every year for the last 8 years with him and his spouse. Financial Plan review helps us to understand where we stood at the beginning, where we are now and how far we need to go to achieve the specific financial goals. This provides a sense of confidence and a sense of satisfaction if we are on the right track. 

You can also work together with a qualified Financial Advisor to lay the fundamentals of a strong financial foundation for you and your family. You need to streamline your family finances to reach your life-goals.