Palmetto Retirement Specialists, LLC

Palmetto Retirement Specialists provides fee-based financial planning and consulting to a mix of clients that include individuals, pension and profit-sharing plans, trusts, estates, charitable organizations, and business entities. The firm does not directly manage client assets; instead it refers clients to third-party money managers and acts as a liaison, helping with paperwork, communication of client changes, and review of third‑party quarterly statements.

Investment advice and any security analysis are delivered primarily through third‑party money managers (for example, Gradient Investments) and may draw on fundamental, technical, and cyclical analysis as part of client portfolios; financial planning itself is delivered for fixed or hourly fees. The firm does not accept discretionary trading authority over client accounts, and clients receive custody and transaction reporting directly from qualified custodians.

Compared with many independent solo advisers, the firm is notable for its managing member’s concurrent insurance business—greater than half of the managing member’s time is spent in the insurance practice—and the firm discloses referral fees and other third‑party incentives related to those relationships. It is also atypical for an independent adviser in that it does not directly provide portfolio management or rely on percentage‑of‑AUM fees, instead combining planning fees with referral arrangements and negotiable third‑party manager fee sharing.