Skip to main content
Northwestern Mutual Northwestern Mutual
Primary Navigation
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Us Overview
    • Working With an Advisor
    • Our Financial Strength
    • Sustainability and Impact
  • Financial Planning
    • Financial Planning Overview
    • Retirement Planning
      • Retirement Planning Overview
      • Retirement Calculator Beach chair icon
    • College Savings Plans
    • Private Wealth Management
    • Estate Planning
    • Long-Term Care
    • Business Services
  • Insurance
    • Insurance Overview
    • Life Insurance
      • Life Insurance Overview
      • Whole Life Insurance
      • Universal Life Insurance
      • Variable Universal Life Insurance
      • Term Life Insurance
      • Life Insurance Calculator Shield icon
    • Disability Insurance
      • Disability Insurance Overview
      • Disability Insurance  For Individuals
      • Disability Insurance  For Doctors and Dentists
      • Disability Insurance Calculator Money Parachute icon
    • Long-Term Care
    • Income Annuities
  • Investments
    • Investments Overview
    • Brokerage Accounts & Services
    • Private Wealth Management
    • Investment Advisory Services
    • Fixed & Variable Annuities
    • Market Commentary
  • Life & Money
    • Life & Money Overview
    • Educational Resources About Financial Planning
    • Educational Resources About Investing
    • Educational Resources About Insurance
    • Educational Resources About Everyday Money
    • Educational Resources About Family & Work
    • Market Commentary
    • Podcast
Utility Navigation
  • Find a Financial Advisor
  • Claims
Search NorthwesternMutual.com

Log in

Please fill in your Username and Password.

Enter your username and password to access your account.

Forgot username or password?

Don't have an account? Register.

Log in to other Northwestern Mutual sites:

  • Access Fund
  • Business Insurance
  • Brokerage and Advisory

Get anywhere access, go mobile

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

Wealth Management Guide


Northwestern Mutual’s guide to wealth management introduces art and science of managing wealth, and how this highly personal service expands upon strategic principles established through long-term financial planning.

middle aged couple enjoying wealth

As your wealth grows, so does the complexity of your financial life. Managing your wealth means paying attention to how you’re growing your assets, protecting them, maintaining tax efficiency, integrating estate planning or business succession and all the other goals you wish to accomplish with the money you’ve earned. Simply put, wealth management brings together the different parts of your financial life to help each piece work most efficiently to get you to your financial goals.

What's in our wealth management guide?

  1. What is wealth management?
  2. How wealth management differs from financial planning
  3. Who needs wealth management?
  4. What's included in wealth management?
  5. Is wealth management worth it?
  6. Choosing a wealth management company

Jump to section

  • What is wealth management?
  • How wealth management differs from financial planning
  • Who needs wealth management?
  • What's included in wealth management?
  • Is wealth management worth it?
  • Choosing a wealth management company
  • What is wealth management?
  • How wealth management differs from financial planning
  • Who needs wealth management?
  • What's included in wealth management?
  • Is wealth management worth it?
  • Choosing a wealth management company

Section 01 What is wealth management?

Wealth management, synonymous with wealth planning, is the art and science of managing an individual’s assets. Tailored to the individual, holistic wealth management considers your values, goals, and appetite for risk so you can live more and worry less.

While each wealth management firm follows its own methodology, wealth managers generally tailor their offerings around four key pillars.

Protect

Shield your wealth against myriad known and unknown risks through appropriate portfolio diversification, insurance planning, tax management, and more to give you flexibility and limit downside risk.

Grow

Seek growth opportunities that go deeper than beating a benchmark. A good wealth manager individualizes your plan, whether you’re interested in ESG, income-producing assets or building your own business.

Enjoy

You've worked hard for this life, and a good plan builds the flexibility and balance to enjoy your wealth how you wish today and without sacrificing your long-term goals down the road. 

Give

Build a plan to pass your assets onto heirs or through charitable donations through comprehensive estate planning and collaboration with the rest of your advisory team.

Ready to take your planning to the next level?

Our comprehensive approach to wealth management will help you and your family enjoy your wealth today, and for generations to come.

Connect with an advisor

Section 02 How wealth management differs from financial planning

Wealth management and financial planning are terms often used interchangeably, but there are key differences between them.

At its heart, financial planning is about understanding your financial goals and generating a plan that will empower you to reach those goals. To accomplish this, a financial advisor will offer advice around (but not limited to):

  • Saving

  • Insurance

  • Debt reduction strategies

  • Investing guidance

  • Retirement planning

Wealth management, by comparison, builds upon the core tenets of financial planning by layering on additional tools and specializations that aren’t typically necessary until you’ve accrued sizable wealth. At that point, your financial picture has become more complex and it becomes more important to consider services, such as:

  • Cash flow management

  • Accounting and tax services

  • Will and trust organization

  • Advanced estate planning

  • Retirement planning

  • Liquidation strategies

Related Articles
  • How Northwestern Mutual Selects Investments for Clients

  • What Makes a Good Wealth Management Strategy?

  • Questions to Ask When Choosing a Wealth Management Company

Section 03 Who needs wealth management?

While financial planning can help anyone, wealth management services are typically something you would add as you accumulate wealth. The amount you need to accumulate varies based on several factors, including your age, complexity of your financial picture and potentially the requirements of the firm you’re working with.

All that said, typically it makes sense to begin considering wealth management once you’ve accumulated around $250,000 of investable assets or more. If you’re not quite there yet, that’s ok. In fact, many people will start out with financial planning, which helps them grow into wealth management as they execute upon their plan over time.

Northwestern Mutual Private Client Group
Related Article
  • Couple on a couch researching how much money you need for wealth management services.

    How Much Money Do You Need for Wealth Management Services?

    How much money do you need for wealth management services? It can depend on a variety of factors about your unique situation.

Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Investing and Your Finances?

Back
1/6
Which of these is a way to invest in the stock market?

Section 04 What's included in wealth management?

To many, the term wealth management is synonymous with investing, but there’s a lot more that goes into this service. For a wealth management strategy to be effective, it must be all-encompassing and highly tailored to you.

  • Goal Setting and Planning

    Before you can take any journey, you must have a destination in mind. Wealth management is no different. Where do you want to go in life? That’s why a good wealth manager will start by listening. They will start by listening and then ask questions to get you thinking about your goals in life. Your goals are destinations.

    Once you know your destination, you can plan your route. By truly listening to you and understanding your ambitions, your advisor can help prioritize goals and assemble an array of flexible financial options to get you there.

  • Managing Cash Flow and Liquidity

    If you are at the point in your financial life where you are considering wealth management services, you’ve probably established a savings regimen and have a well-stocked emergency fund. Still, there is value to be gained from an outside, expert perspective to ensure your cash flow is optimal.

    For example, you may believe that you have enough liquid savings to see you through a prolonged market downturn or financial duress, but you may have overlooked one, or multiple, risks which would signal that you should have a higher percentage of your portfolio set aside as cash. Or, perhaps you want to raise some cash to seize a market opportunity. A wealth manager will ensure you have the right amount of liquidity to manage risk and remain opportunistic.

  • Investing

    Growth through investments has, historically speaking, been one of the most effective means to grow and accumulate wealth over time. But no investor is quite the same as the other, and a wealth manager will work hard to tailor your strategy to your individuality. Your goals, your timeline, your risk tolerance, and your values should all influence the advice that you receive.

    Generally, the investing strategy included in wealth management will include a mixture of general investing advice, personalized investments, portfolio management and advanced investment vehicles.

  • Insurance

    While most people do not immediately think of insurance when they think of wealth management, it can play an important role in a comprehensive wealth management strategy.

    As such, the engagement with your advisor is likely to begin with an evaluation of your existing coverage to determine whether it is appropriate, or whether you should consider additional types or levels of coverage given your risk exposure. This may include: disability planning, term life insurance, permanent life insurance and long-term care planning.

Related Articles
  • How Disability Insurance Works

  • The Multiple Ways You Can Use Permanent Life Insurance Throughout Your Life

  • How Whole Life Insurance Can Help You With Multiple Financial Goals

  • Thought Leadership

    A great wealth manager doesn’t simply execute your strategy, they help you see the big picture. They'll leverage their expertise to regularly adjust your plan as necessary, accounting for emerging trends and rotations in the market, as well as laws and regulations that may affect you. Along the way, they'll offer general education and insights to keep you informed when sweeping changes impact markets or the economy.

    If you like to be more hands on, your advisor is there to help and guide you. If you’re considering a particular investment, for example, they can help you confirm or deny your thesis, or else approach it from a new perspective that you may not have considered.

  • Tax Management

    A large part of wealth management is about managing both known and unknown risks that might otherwise derail your financial plan. Taxes—income taxes, capital gains taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes, generation-skipping transfer taxes (GSTT)—are one such risk that can be a performance drag on your plan if they are not properly accounted for.

    The good news is that, as a known risk, taxes can be planned for and strategies can be put in place to minimize their impact to your wealth. With this in mind, tax management will be central to a wealth managements strategy.

Related Articles
  • Happy couple with their child talking about how to make their money last in retirement.

    How to Make Your Money Last in Retirement

    The key is creating a plan that goes beyond your investments.

  • Couple sitting on front porch steps.

    How Different Types of Retirement Savings Are Taxed

    Different types of retirement savings are taxed in different ways. When you know how, you can use this to your advantage to minimize the impact of taxes.

  • Your Compensation Plan

    If you have a complex employee compensation plan your wealth advisor can help you understand what you are being offered, what you are entitled to, and can assist in the valuation of your plan.

    Stock options, deferred compensation, and other forms of equity plans can all be excellent means of building wealth, particularly if your employer does well. Should you exercise your options and hold stock, or exercise and sell? Managing this aspect of your compensation package requires a strategy to optimally time when to do it while also keeping an eye on your taxes and overall asset allocation.

  • Retirement Planning

    Many wealth management firms bundle retirement planning into their discussions about investing, and that makes sense: Investing consistently and regularly over the course of your career is the surest way of growing the nest egg that you will eventually depend on during retirement. That being said, more goes into retirement planning than just investing. Once you’ve built your wealth, you also need a plan for how you will use that wealth.

Related Article
  • Active retired couple enjoying a hike over a rocky shoreline

    What Is a Retirement Plan?

    As you reach retirement you probably have money tucked away in a variety of savings vehicles, but a retirement plan helps you put all the pieces together to generate predictable income in retirement.

  • Estate Planning

    Your wealth management strategy should also factor in questions of estate planning. A great wealth advisor will ask you key questions about how you want your wealth managed and divided upon your death, while also ensuring you are taking advantage of your options to reach your personal goals today.

    For example, do you intend to leave an inheritance to your children, grandchildren, or other heirs? Do you have goals for charitable giving? If you are a business owner, do you have a plan in place for business succession?

    A few documents to consider: your will and trust, beneficiary assignments and medical powers of attorney.

Related Article
  • Granddaughter running to her grandma for a hug.

    The Estate Planning Process: 6 Steps to Take

    Learn what six steps can protect your assets and make sure your wishes are carried out.

Could you use an expert in your corner?

A Northwestern Mutual wealth manager can help you build a long-term strategy that you can stick to in good times and bad.

Find your expert today

Section 05 Is wealth management worth it?

32%

Of Americans say their financial discipline improved during the pandemic, according to Northwestern Mutual's Planning & Progress 2021 study. 

In order to understand whether wealth management is worth it to you, it’s important to understand the true value that it brings to your financial plan.

When you hire a wealth manager, you aren’t getting a cookie-cutter financial plan or investment advice from a robo-advisor. You’re hiring a professional or team of professionals whose job it is to listen to you, understand the goals you have for your money, and make those goals a reality. You’re getting a plan that is custom built for your goals, your values, your risk tolerance.

If you’re worried about the costs associated with hiring a wealth manager, it can be helpful to understand the different ways in which a wealth manager might be compensated.

4 common ways wealth managers are paid

  • Fee-based planning: The client pays the wealth manager different fees for different services. Common fees include an account set-up fee, annual retainer fees, and fees when executing specific trades, etc.

  • Percentage of Assets Under Management (AUM): The client pays the wealth manager a pre-agreed percentage of the total assets being managed. Many clients prefer this form of compensation, as it incentivizes performance.

  • Product commission: The client does not pay their wealth manager directly. Instead, the wealth manager is compensated by outside parties when they sell insurance policies, annuities, or other financial products.

  • Hourly rate: The client pays an hourly rate for work done by the wealth manager. Most wealth managers do not charge like this, but some do.

Section 06 Choosing a wealth management company

If and when you decide that hiring a wealth manager is the right move for you, the next step will be to evaluate a few firms and select one that you believe will effectively protect and grow your money.

One of the best ways of evaluating a wealth manager is simply having an honest and open conversation. During this conversation, you’ll want to ask them certain key questions that will help you gain some insight into their investment strategy and what you can expect if you decide to move forward working with them.

Conversation starters with an advisor
  • What is your investment philosophy?

  • How do you benchmark performance?

  • What services aside from investing do you offer?

  • What are the fees?

  • If my goals change, how might our engagement change?

  • Can I see an example of a financial plan?

Ready for a conversation?

A Northwestern Mutual wealth manager is ready to answer the key questions you have

Start a Conversation

All investments carry some level of risk including the potential loss of all money invested. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against a loss. Working with a Wealth Management Advisor or any other financial services provider is not a guarantee as to future investment success.

Left Dotted Pattern
Right Dotted Pattern

Want more? Get financial tips, tools, and more with our monthly newsletter.

Find What You're Looking for at Northwestern Mutual

Northwestern Mutual General Disclaimer

Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and its subsidiaries. Life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with longterm care benefits are issued by The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI (NM). Longterm care insurance is issued by Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI, (NLTC) a subsidiary of NM. Investment brokerage services are offered through Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS) a subsidiary of NM, brokerdealer, registered investment advisor, and member FINRA and SIPC. Investment advisory and trust services are offered through Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company (NMWMC), Milwaukee, WI, a subsidiary of NM and a federal savings bank. Products and services referenced are offered and sold only by appropriately appointed and licensed entities and financial advisors and professionals. Not all products and services are available in all states. Not all Northwestern Mutual representatives are advisors. Only those representatives with Advisor in their title or who otherwise disclose their status as an advisor of NMWMC are credentialed as NMWMC representatives to provide investment advisory services.

Northwestern Mutual Northwestern Mutual

Footer Navigation

  • About Us
  • Newsroom
  • Careers
  • Information Protection
  • Business Services
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us
  • FAQs
  • Legal Notice
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Notices

Connect with us

  • Facebook iconConnect with us on Facebook
  • X iconFollow Northwestern Mutual on X
  • LinkedIn iconVisit Northwestern Mutual on LinkedIn
  • Instagram iconFollow Northwestern Mutual on Instagram
  • YouTube iconConnect with Northwestern Mutual on YouTube

Over 8,000+ Financial Advisors and Professionals Nationwide*

Find an Advisor

Footer Copyright

*Based on Northwestern Mutual internal data, not applicable exclusively to disability insurance products.

Copyright © 2025 The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI. All Rights Reserved. Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and its subsidiaries.