Special needs financial planning coordinates your family's financial, legal, and life planning into a single strategy designed to protect benefits, preserve assets, and plan for a lifetime of care for all family members, ensuring their financial security. FamilyVest combines CFA/CFP (Certified Financial Planner)/ChSNC rigor with the lived understanding of families navigating ABLE accounts, special needs trusts, and lifetime care funding.
$994
2026 monthly SSI benefit
(individual)
$2,000
SSI asset limit
(unchanged since 1989)
$20K
Annual ABLE account
contribution limit
46
New ABLE age-of-onset
eligibility (expanded 2026)
Special needs financial planning coordinates federal benefits, state programs, estate documents, insurance, and long-term investments into a single strategy built to last a lifetime. FamilyVest works with families across the country who are navigating ABLE accounts, special needs trusts, SSI and Medicaid eligibility, guardianship decisions, and the long horizon of planning for a child whose support may extend well beyond their parents' lifetimes. We are based in Destin, FL, and the work is the same whether you live around the corner or on the other side of the country.
Discussing special needs financial planning with Prof. Kent Smetters Listen
As the father of two sons on the autism spectrum, Todd learned early that the margin for error would be small. The financial complexity, the regulatory maze, the fear of making one wrong move that costs years of benefit eligibility. He doesn't advise on it theoretically. He navigates it daily.
Having spent twenty years in institutional portfolio management, Todd dedicated the second act of his career to helping families like his tackle these obstacles together. Other advisors know ABLE accounts. Todd knows what happens when a parent passes without a funded second-parent SNT in place. The difference between knowing the mechanics and understanding the reality is the difference between generic advice and a plan that actually works.
FamilyVest exists because of this. Every client benefits from that foundation. Families with complexity deserve advisors whose advisory services truly understand it.
The difference between knowing the mechanics and understanding the reality is the difference between generic advice and a plan that actually works.
Special needs financial planning spans four interdependent domains. FamilyVest leads the financial planning for families with special needs and coordinates estate and legal work. We also help your family organize the resource and life planning areas that are essential to getting the financial plan right.
Your child's life goals drive every financial decision. We address these in depth during the planning process to ensure the financial and legal plans reflect reality.
Resource decisions are capital-intensive and drive the financial plan. We help your family organize these areas, understand the options, and ensure you have a plan in place. Due to HIPAA and other constraints, families manage these services directly.
This is where we lead. Benefit preservation, trust funding, lifetime cost modeling, investment management, and cash flow coordination across your entire family's financial picture, including a tailored investment strategy.
We coordinate with your attorney to ensure the estate plan, trust structure, and legal protections align with the financial plan and carry out your intentions.
The 5 Life Stages of Special Needs Planning
Minor Child: Special needs child financial planning starts here. Establishing ABLE accounts early, titling assets correctly, and ensuring both parents carry adequate life and disability insurance. The goal is building the foundation before your child ages into adult benefit systems.
Adult at Home: Financial planning for special needs adults living at home focuses on benefit eligibility, structured employment income, and the transition from pediatric to adult services, including understanding Medicare options. This is where Social Security (SSI) asset limits and Medicaid preservation become daily concerns.
Independent Living: Residential costs often become the largest line item in a special needs financial plan. Trust distribution strategies, housing subsidies, and supported living arrangements all need to align with benefit preservation rules.
Parents Aging: Special needs estate planning becomes urgent. Working alongside your estate planning attorney, we ensure successor trustees, funded SNTs, letters of intent, and caregiver succession plans are in place before they are needed. We stress-test every plan against a "what if tomorrow" scenario.
After Parents: The plan must function without you. Corporate trustee coordination, ongoing investment management inside the SNT, and a funded long-term care model ensure your loved one's quality of life continues on your terms.
Every domain requires a plan update at every stage. Expenses grow. Rules change. Your special needs financial advisor stays with your family through all of it.
These are the decisions that come up in almost every special needs financial plan. None of them are one-time events. Each is revisited as your child grows, as rules change, and as your family's circumstances evolve.
ABLE accounts are tax-advantaged savings accounts for individuals whose disability onset occurred before a qualifying age. As of 2026, the age-of-onset threshold has expanded to 46, which brings many more families into eligibility. Contributions do not count against the SSI $2,000 asset limit up to a federal exclusion threshold, and qualified withdrawals for disability-related expenses are tax-free. ABLE accounts are not a substitute for a special needs trust. They sit alongside one. Trust funds generally cover lifetime support, inheritance, and third-party contributions. ABLE accounts handle the everyday friction of daily living expenses, housing, transportation, and short-horizon goals. The two tools are coordinated, not competitive. We help families decide how much to route through each, how to title assets correctly, and how to keep contributions within the limits that matter for benefit preservation.
Special needs trusts come in three structures, and the one that fits depends on whose money is funding the trust and what the family's long-term goals are. A first-party SNT holds assets that legally belong to the beneficiary, often from a lawsuit settlement, an inheritance that was not redirected, or accumulated earnings. Medicaid payback rules apply at death. A third-party SNT holds assets contributed by parents, grandparents, or other family members, and does not have the same payback requirement. This is the most common vehicle for parental estate planning. A pooled trust is administered by a nonprofit for the benefit of many individuals, typically used when the beneficiary does not have enough assets to justify a standalone trust. We work alongside estate planning attorneys to coordinate trust structure, trustee selection, investment provisions, and funding sources. The legal drafting is the attorney's work. Making sure the trust actually matches the family's financial plan is ours.
Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid both have strict asset and income tests. The SSI countable resource limit for an individual has been $2,000 since 1989. That limit has not moved with inflation. For many families, Medicaid is the gateway to waiver services, residential supports, and medical coverage that private insurance simply will not fund. Losing eligibility can unwind years of planning in a single quarter. The preservation tools are specific: properly drafted special needs trusts, correctly titled ABLE accounts, careful handling of gifts and inheritances, and coordination of earned income against SSI work incentive rules. We review benefit status annually, watch for proposed rule changes at the state level, and coordinate with your benefits attorney when a life event, employment shift, or asset change could push the beneficiary over the line. This is the area where small mistakes create large consequences.
A letter of intent is not a legal document. It is the document future trustees, successor caregivers, and extended family will actually read. It describes your child's daily routines, communication patterns, sensory preferences, medical history, medications, therapies, schools, community connections, and the things that make them feel safe. It records what has worked and what has not. It names the people who know your child well. Nothing in an estate plan or a trust instrument captures any of this. A good letter of intent is updated annually, stored with the estate documents, and shared with the people who will need it. We help families build the first version, set a review cadence, and keep the document current as circumstances change.
When a child with a disability turns 18, parents lose automatic decision-making authority. Guardianship is one path, and for some families it is the right one. For others, less restrictive alternatives preserve the adult child's autonomy while still providing needed support. Supported decision-making agreements, powers of attorney, healthcare surrogate designations, and HIPAA releases each address a piece of the need. The right combination depends on your child's capacity, the complexity of their daily decisions, and the family's comfort with ongoing oversight. Guardianship is the most expensive option, the most restrictive, and the hardest to undo. It is worth understanding the alternatives before defaulting to it. We coordinate with your attorney, your benefits coordinator, and your medical team so the decision reflects the whole picture rather than the narrow legal one.
A special needs financial plan is not a 30-year retirement model. It is often a 60- to 80-year model, spanning your lifetime and your child's. Lifetime cost modeling estimates residential support, therapies, medical expenses, transportation, recreation, and employment supports across each life stage, adjusted for inflation and benefit coverage. The number it produces is almost always larger than families expect. Sibling planning is the other side of this conversation. Many siblings inherit some level of oversight responsibility, whether formally as successor trustees or informally as the family member closest at hand. That role deserves to be defined, funded, and discussed openly rather than assumed. We help families build realistic lifetime funding models, stress-test them against early parental death and longer-than-expected lifespans, and bring siblings into the planning conversation at the appropriate age and level of detail.
Free Guide
A comprehensive primer covering government benefits, ABLE accounts, special needs trusts, guardianship alternatives, estate planning, and the tax strategies that matter most for families with a special needs dependent. Updated for 2026 with current benefit amounts, the ABLE age expansion, and SECURE Act planning strategies.
An ABLE (Achieving a Better Life Experience) account is a tax-advantaged savings account for individuals with disabilities. Contributions grow tax-free when used for qualified disability expenses like housing, education, transportation, and healthcare. As of 2026, the annual contribution limit is $20,000 and the age-of-onset eligibility has expanded to 46, meaning the qualifying disability must have begun before age 46. ABLE account balances up to $100,000 are excluded from SSI asset limits, making them one of the most important tools in special needs financial planning.
A special needs trust (SNT) holds assets for a person with a disability without disqualifying them from SSI or Medicaid. There are three types. A first-party SNT is funded with the beneficiary's own assets (such as an inheritance or legal settlement) and requires Medicaid payback at death. A third-party SNT is funded by parents, grandparents, or other family members and has no Medicaid payback requirement. A pooled trust is managed by a nonprofit and can be useful when a corporate trustee is needed for smaller balances. Which type you need depends on whose money is going in and what the long-term funding plan looks like.
They can if assets are not structured correctly. SSI has a $2,000 individual asset limit that has not changed since 1989. Money held in the beneficiary's own name counts against this limit. However, assets inside a properly drafted special needs trust or an ABLE account (up to $100,000) are excluded. The key is ensuring that every dollar intended for your child flows through the right vehicle. A direct inheritance, a well-meaning gift to a savings account, or an improperly titled life insurance policy can all trigger benefit loss.
This is the central question in special needs estate planning. The plan must function without you. That means a funded third-party special needs trust with a named successor trustee (or corporate trustee), a detailed letter of intent documenting your child's preferences and routines, life insurance structured to fund the trust rather than pass directly to the beneficiary, and a will that does not inadvertently leave assets to your child outside the trust. We stress-test every plan against a "what if tomorrow" scenario to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
No. While we are based in Destin, FL, we work with special needs families nationwide. Federal benefit programs like SSI and Medicaid have national eligibility rules, though Medicaid waivers and state disability services vary by state. We understand the federal framework and coordinate with local attorneys and state-specific resources as needed. All planning meetings can be conducted virtually.
The foundational framework for coordinating lifetime care, benefits, assets, and family decisions.
Comprehensive overview of ABLE accounts, trusts, benefits coordination, and lifetime care planning.
Understanding the 2026 ABLE age-of-onset expansion and how it affects your planning strategy.
First-party, third-party, and pooled trusts: which type is right for your family.
Navigating guardianship, benefits transitions, and the critical decisions that shape their future.
How SSI and SSDI work, benefit amounts, asset limits, and common misconceptions.
Tell us about your child, your current planning, and what is keeping you up at night. We take notes. We ask questions. We do not interrupt with a sales script.
Not every family needs what we do, and not every family is a fit for how we work. If we are not the right advisor, we will tell you and point you toward someone who is.
Benefit coordination, trust funding, estate document review, investment structure, cost modeling. You will know what the work looks like and what it costs before you decide to move forward.
The first conversation is free. If you decide to engage us, we work on a flat-fee retainer. If you decide not to, you leave with a clearer picture of your planning situation either way.
Special needs financial planning touches everything: wealth management, retirement planning, life insurance, Social Security, long-term care, and the loved ones who depend on you. If you want a financial professional who understands how all the pieces connect, start with a conversation.
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