Process
This page is the honest walkthrough of an engagement with Camba Capital. Below is exactly how a Long Island pension family moves from the first thirty-minute call. Through the pension election, the Social Security decision, and the rollover framework. Into ongoing household planning. No pitch, no product, no handoff to a junior advisor. The founder does the work.
In plain English
The client journey
Every engagement follows the same shape because every Long Island pension household faces the same irreversible decisions in roughly the same order. The work is deliberately unglamorous: careful document collection, honest math, decisions paired with the advisor before anything is signed, and a long tail of quarterly coordination once the big forms are behind the household.
A thirty-minute call, free of charge. A read on where the household is, the decisions on the table, and whether Camba is the right partner for the work. No packet opens, no paperwork signs, no pitch at the end.
Pension option illustrations from the retirement system, the most recent Social Security earnings statement for both spouses, 401(k) / 403(b) / 457(b) statements, taxable account statements, the last two tax returns, and beneficiary forms. Collected once, reviewed together.
The option illustrations turned into a household cash-flow model across three mortality scenarios. Maximum Allowance, each J&S percentage, pop-up variants, and, where it applies, a real pension-max comparison with underwritten term insurance quotes, not table rates.
Claiming ages modeled for both spouses, with the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset applied correctly. Camba coordinates the SS claim with the pension start and the 403(b) / 457(b) drawdown instead of treating each decision in isolation.
Old 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and 457(b)s assessed against the five-factor framework. Total cost, menu quality, creditor protection, consolidation value, and Roth conversion runway. Sometimes the right answer is a rollover. Sometimes it is to leave the plan exactly where it is.
Once decisions are made, the work moves to the long tail: beneficiary updates, Roth conversion windows, RMD sequencing, household coordination with the CPA and estate attorney, and a quarterly touchpoint directly with the founder, not a staff handoff.
What the journey is not
It is not a product pitch with planning bolted on. It is not a discovery call that ends in a rollover the household did not need. It is not the firm filling in the form for the household and moving on. Camba's work is the decision, the coordination, and the long-running relationship, not the transaction that happens between them.
Specific recommendations are tailored to each household's objectives, time horizon, health, and tax situation, and may differ meaningfully from the description above. Camba Capital is in pre-launch, founder Dan Zimon is completing Investment Adviser Representative registration under an established advisory firm; when open, the firm will operate fee-only with compensation paid only by clients. Past outcomes are not a guarantee of future results.
Decisions Camba walks households through
These are the specific decisions and interactions that dominate the first year of a new engagement. They are the reason a fee-only fiduciary makes sense for this household: each one is irreversible or expensive to undo, and each one is where a product-driven conversation most often steers the family wrong.
Maximum Allowance versus 100% / 75% / 50% joint-and-survivor, pop-up variants, and period-certain elections. Walked with the retiree's own option illustrations, not a generic example.
Single Life Allowance, Options 1–4, pop-ups, and the Five- and Ten-Year Certain variants. Read together with the household's cash-flow picture and spousal coverage.
Line-of-duty, disability, and service-retirement benefit structures layered against the Variable Supplement Fund where it applies, and coordinated with spousal and survivor elections.
For teachers and school-district employees using a 403(b) to fill the gap between retirement and pension / Social Security start dates. Sized to the household, with tax-awareness built in.
NYC- and county-level deferred-compensation balances unlock early without the 10% penalty. Sequencing that flexibility into a household income plan meaningfully changes Social Security claiming choices.
The Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset change the math for public-sector households in ways most calculators miss. Camba runs the real numbers for both spouses.
The five-factor framework, total cost, menu quality, creditor protection, household consolidation, and Roth conversion runway, applied to the household's actual statements, not a hypothetical.
The low-income years between retirement and RMDs are the cheapest tax bracket the household will ever occupy. Camba identifies the window and sizes the conversions.
Pension beneficiary forms, IRA and 403(b) beneficiary designations, TOD on taxable accounts, and the handoff to trust-and-estates counsel when a will or revocable trust needs work.
When a Max Single Life plus term life insurance on the retiree's life outperforms a standard J&S election, and, just as often, when it doesn't. Evaluated, not assumed.
These describe the categories of household decisions Camba Capitalis being built to walk through once the firm is registered and open; it is not a guarantee that every one applies to every household, and no advisory relationship is created by reading this page. Specific recommendations will depend on the retirement system, the household's tax situation, health, and stated objectives. Camba does not sell insurance or annuities; the NYS Life & Health license is held so these products can be analyzed objectively in the comparison.
A thirty-minute call, free of charge. The household describes where they are and what is on the table. Camba describes what the work would look like. No packet opens, no paperwork signs, no pressure. Most first calls end with a concrete next step the household can take on their own. Whether or not Camba becomes the advisor.
Pension option illustrations, the most recent Social Security earnings statements for both spouses, 401(k) / 403(b) / 457(b) statements, taxable account statements, the last two tax returns, and beneficiary forms. Camba assembles the household's full retirement picture once, in one place, so every subsequent decision is made against the same facts.
The retirement system's option illustrations are turned into a household cash-flow model across three mortality scenarios. Retiree dies at 75, both live to 90, surviving spouse lives to 95. Maximum Allowance, 100% / 75% / 50% J&S, pop-up variants, and period-certain options are compared side by side. Where pension-max is in the conversation, it is modeled with a real underwritten term life quote on the retiree's current health, not a published table rate.
Claiming ages modeled for both spouses, with the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset applied correctly against any NYSTRS, NYSLRS, NYCERS, PFRS, or other non-SS-covered pension. The SS claim is coordinated with the pension start date, the 403(b) / 457(b) drawdown strategy, and, for two-earner households, the survivor outcome, not optimized in isolation.
Old 401(k), 403(b), and 457(b) balances assessed against the five-factor framework: total cost of ownership (the layered fee stack, not the headline expense ratio), investment menu quality, creditor protection, household consolidation value, and Roth conversion runway. The framework drives the recommendation, rollover, consolidate into the new plan, leave it in place, or a partial action, and the analysis is documented in writing.
Retirement planning is a household-coordination problem, not a single-account problem. Camba coordinates with the household's CPA on tax sequencing, with trust-and-estates counsel on wills, revocable trusts, and beneficiary reviews, and with the spouse on every decision before a form is signed. Notary services are part of the engagement at no additional cost. Most rollover forms, spousal-consent paperwork, beneficiary changes, and deed transfers require a notary, and households often defer the action for weeks looking for one. Removing that friction is part of how the work actually moves. No referral fees, no revenue sharing, no product commissions change hands in any direction.
Once the big decisions are made, the work moves to the long tail: beneficiary updates after life events, Roth conversion windows sized year by year, RMD sequencing as the retiree approaches age 73, annual benefit statement reviews, and a quarterly touchpoint directly with the founder. Non-discretionary clients approve every recommendation before it is implemented. Discretionary clients hear from Camba at a defined cadence, not from a staff assistant.
On the use of modern research tools
What it means
What it does not mean
Camba Capitaltreats modern research tools the way an institutional planning desk treats its data vendors: as inputs to human judgment, never as substitutes for it. Compliance disclosures on the firm's use of AI-assisted research are available in Form ADV Part 2A on request.
Objections we expect
The right way to use AI in fiduciary work is not the answer it produces. It is the record it leaves behind. A pension election is permanent. A rollover is hard to unwind. A Roth conversion can't be reversed past the recharacterization deadline. The work has to be defensible, not just produced.
Because a single model produces an answer; a multi-perspective review produces a record. An answer is a feature. A signed analysis with preserved counter-arguments is the artifact compliance can file. You can't defend a permanent pension election with a black-box recommendation, and no fiduciary should try. The advisor still owns the decision; the review process makes the inputs to that decision legible.
It can be, and the record makes that visible. Confidence is reported against structural agreement. Five of five reviewers concurred, or three of five did. A unanimous record is logged as unanimous, never flagged as more correct. Dan Zimonstill owns the recommendation. The review process makes the inputs to that decision legible. For the household, for the regulator, and for the firm's own audit trail.
Your statements and plan documents stay encrypted on the firm's infrastructure, accessible only to the founder. AI-assisted parsing produces a structured analysis that Dan Zimon reviews and signs before any recommendation is made or any form is filed. The public chatbot on this site is a separate, general-purpose tool. Its operation is documented on the disclosures page and it does not create an advisory relationship. Household data is never used to train any external model.
The methodology described above reflects the firm's intended client-engagement approach once registration is complete. Camba Capital is not yet registered as an investment adviser and is not currently providing advisory services.
Next step
No cost, no obligation, no sales pitch. A conversation about where the household is, what decisions are on the table, and whether Camba Capital is the right partner for the work in between.