DBA Upal or United Professionals Assoc. Ltd.

Utica Physicians’ Association, Ltd. (UPAL) is a physician membership organization that provides investment advisory services to individual retail clients through an IRA and Personal Investment Program at Charles Schwab and acts as program sponsor for defined contribution ERISA retirement plans. Its clients include physician members and their employees as well as other individual investors, and the firm provides investment recommendations, plan design and retirement program administration in partnership with an institutional trustee/recordkeeper.

UPAL’s investment approach emphasizes passive or minimally managed mutual funds and ETFs, buy-and-hold discipline, and global diversification while generally avoiding individual stock selection for retail accounts. UPAL reports that its Schwab retail program holds $82,963,529 in non-discretionary assets while the Retirement Program holds $159,168,252 in discretionary assets as of April 30, 2025, and the firm does not accept discretionary authority over client retail accounts—an arrangement that is uncommon among peers.

The firm’s ownership and governance by physician members, with oversight from a Financial Management Committee and board officers who are physicians, differentiates its organizational structure from many advisers. UPAL also centralizes retail custody and execution with Charles Schwab and outsources retirement trustee and recordkeeping functions to Bank of Oklahoma Financial Services, N.A., combining member-driven governance with institutional service providers.