The SIPC has earned an impressive track record. Since its founding in 1970, the SIPC has returned 99% of eligible customer claims. The SIPC has engaged in 330 proceedings, which is less than 1% of the 40,000 broker-dealers that have been SIPC members over its history. One-third of these proceedings fell between 1971 and 1974. This spike in cases resulted from difficult years in the late 1960s when hundreds of broker-dealers were merged, acquired, or forced out of business.
In recent decades, insolvency of a custodian has become a rare occurrence. The average new cases between 2009-2019 was less than one each year. As of 2020, only three cases with the SIPC remain open, most notably Lehman Brothers and Madoff Investment Securities.
At BWM Financial, we partner with our clients to help them live richly – in alignment with your values and intentions. Through our 3-step process, we take prospective clients through a powerful exercise to understand their goals and values and create a draft financial plan to achieving them. We dive deep into every area of wealth management, including estate and tax planning, to check for blind spots and design creative solutions. Throughout this process, we partner closely with your legal and tax professionals to provide coordinated financial advice.