Special Needs Financial Advisor
Finding a financial advisor is not difficult. Finding one who understands special needs planning is. At River, it is not a service line within a larger practice.
Why Specialization Matters
Correct for Most Families. Wrong for Yours.
The intersection of government benefits, Special Needs Trusts, lifetime care modeling, and estate planning for a person with a disability is a specialized discipline that requires sustained, specific experience.
Advice does not have to be bad to cause harm here. It simply has to be correct for most families but wrong for yours, because it did not account for how an inheritance, a gift, or a beneficiary designation affects SSI eligibility.
The River Difference
What Makes River's Approach Different
One Integrated Plan
River builds one plan that connects benefits, estate, retirement, and care rather than treating each piece separately. The Special Needs Trust is treated as a financial planning issue, not just a legal document.
Lifetime Care Modeling First
Lifetime care costs are modeled before any strategy is recommended, not after. The core question, what it costs to support your loved one for their entire lifetime, gets a real answer.
Direct Legal Coordination
Leo coordinates directly and proactively with your family’s legal team throughout the planning process, not just when a question comes up. The financial plan and the legal plan move together.
Dual Retirement Modeling
Most families are supporting two futures at once. Planning includes one model for the parents’ own retirement and one for their loved one’s lifetime funding, so neither is sacrificed for the other.
Leo Rotman & Eric Jorgensen, CFP®
River Financial Group was founded by Leo Rotman, CFP®, a 25-year veteran of financial planning who kept seeing the same gap in families raising a loved one with a disability: pieces of a plan, but no one holding the whole picture. Eric Jorgensen, CFP®, leads firm operations and disability consulting, bringing direct personal experience with disability planning to the work. River holds the whole picture.
What to Look For
Questions Worth Asking Any Advisor
You're Considering
Do you understand how financial decisions affect government benefits?
Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Housing Vouchers, and other programs have strict rules about assets, income, and how trusts are structured. This has to be part of the financial planning conversation from the start, not a separate consideration.
Do you coordinate directly with attorneys and other specialists?
Special needs planning involves attorneys for trust drafting, estate planning, and benefits advocacy. The financial plan and the legal plan need to move together.
Do you model lifetime care costs?
The core question every family needs answered is how much it will cost to support their loved one’s quality of life for their entire lifetime. That takes dedicated modeling, not a standard retirement projection.
How are you compensated, and do you hold a fiduciary duty to you?
Ask any advisor how they’re compensated, and whether they’re legally required to act in your best interest in writing.
Looking for a Special Needs Financial Advisor?
The first consultation is free. Leo will review your current plan, identify what is missing or misaligned, and give you an honest picture of where you stand.