When Estate Planning Software Leaves the Hard Part to Your Client

Mandy advisors have probably had a client tell them some version of this:

"I already have an estate plan."

And when you dig in and ask them a few more questions, you find out they created a will (on their own) online a few years ago, downloaded a trust from a legal website, or have a binder sitting somewhere at home that hasn't been opened since the day they signed it.

Technically, they have estate planning documents, but do they actually have a completed estate plan?

That's a much different question, and it's becoming increasingly important for financial advisors to understand as more estate planning technology enters our industry.

There has never been an easier time for someone to create legal documents online. A client can answer a questionnaire, generate a will or trust, electronically sign documents and feel like they've checked estate planning off their list.

More families are thinking about estate planning, and technology has made conversations that once felt intimidating much easier to start; so in many ways, this accessibility is a positive thing.

The concern we have at ePIC Services Company isn't the technology itself, it come down to:
what happens when technology tries to takes over the entire estate planning process?

In this case, creating documents and completing an estate plan are two very different things.

Estate Planning is More Than a Binder Full of Documents

Ask yourself, "what exactly are my clients are actually trying to protect?".

Their home. Retirement accounts. Investment accounts. Life insurance. Business interests. Real estate. Beneficiaries. Minor children. Their wishes if they become incapacitated. The wealth they've spent decades building and, ultimately, the people they want that wealth to protect.

For many of your clients, these pieces have been accumulated at different times, through different institutions and under completely different circumstances.

Maybe the 401(k) beneficiary designation was made 15 years ago and their life insurance policy hasn't been reviewed in a decade. Perhaps they started a business, sold another property, remarried or moved to another state.

That's just...life.

But this is where we have to be careful about reducing what the estate planning to documents are working to achieve.

A will, a trust, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives all may be important parts of an estate plan, but the real work happens when all of those documents are coordinated with the client's actual financial life.

And that's the part that an 'online template modified with AI' can't always see.

A Trust Doesn't Accomplish Much by Sitting on a Shelf

This is one of the biggest issues we've seen throughout our years working in estate planning.

A client creates a trust, signs it, receives a beautiful binder and assumes the work is finished.

Meanwhile, the house may still be titled incorrectly, accounts may never have been addressed, beneficiary designations may conflict with the overall plan, or business interests may require additional consideration.

The trust exists, but the implementation never happened; and unfortunately, the family may not discover that until they're trying to use the plan.

This is one of the reasons ePIC Services Company was built around a very specific question:

Why do estate plans fail?

We weren't interested in simply finding a faster way to generate documents. We wanted to understand why families could spend the time and money creating an estate plan and still end up with an outcome that didn't accomplish what they thought it would.

Trust funding quickly became one of the most important pieces of that answer.

Creating the trust is part of the process; making sure the appropriate assets are coordinated with that trust is where the strategy starts becoming real.

As our CEO Carter Wilcoxson often says, "It's not what it is, it's what it does."

That's a very important distinction for advisors evaluating estate planning solutions for their clients.

Your Clients Don't Know What They Don't Know

We talked about this recently in another article about the danger of the "simple estate plan."

Your clients shouldn't expected to understand all of this.

They're not supposed to know how beneficiary designations interact with their trust, whether an asset should be retitled, what happens to an old retirement account, or whether their current documents still accomplish what they intended ten years ago.

And as an advisor, you have to be careful about what questions you ask, and what advice you give out. That's why it's important to surround yourself with a team of professionals.

And it's also why we believe advisors should think carefully before handing a client an estate planning software login and assuming the technology will take it from there.

Imagine a client completing an online questionnaire and being asked questions they don't even fully understand.

They may do their best to answer them and get through the digital paperwork, but did they answer them correctly?

Did they understand why the question mattered?

And when they feel lost or get too busy to finish and stop halfway through the process, who brings them back?

These aren't necessarily software problems. They're process problems.

And better software alone can't solve them.

Estate Planning Has to Connect With Financial Planning

This is where the advisor's role becomes incredibly important.

Some of the largest assets your clients own may never transfer according to their will.

Retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities and certain financial accounts may transfer according to beneficiary designations.

Now imagine a client carefully creating a trust with specific instructions for how they want assets distributed, while a beneficiary designation made years earlier sends a significant asset somewhere completely different.

This is exactly why we believe estate planning should never operate in isolation from financial planning.

The legal plan and the financial plan need to communicate with one another.

And this is also where estate planning becomes one of the greatest discovery opportunities available to an advisor.

As clients begin gathering information and reviewing their financial lives, things naturally surface.

• An old 401(k) they haven't thought about in years.

• A beneficiary who needs to be updated.

• A life insurance policy that hasn't been reviewed.

• A property that needs to be addressed.

• An account that isn't coordinated with the trust.

Estate planning creates a reason to look at the entire picture; and when you look at the entire picture, you often discover financial conversations that otherwise may never have happened.

That's good planning.

And yes, it can also create meaningful business opportunities for the advisor.

Technology Should Make the Process Better, Not Lonelier

Let's make sure that we're being clear here, because ePIC Services Company is very much an estate planning technology solution company.

We believe that the right technology can help any advisor implement and scale estate planning into their practice.

It can help make the process more efficient, improve communication, organize information and make estate planning significantly more accessible.

But we also believe technology works best when it's supporting people, not replacing them.

That's why every ePIC advisor's client is paired with a dedicated onboarding specialist who walks alongside them through the estate planning process.

Our team does all of the work for an advisor! We help gather and organize information, coordinate the legal review through ePIC's network attorneys, answers questions through the appropriate professionals, and more. All of this keeps the process moving and helps make sure the plan actually gets completed and funded.

The advisor doesn't have to become the estate planning expert or chase down documents from their clients.

They also don't have to become responsible for explaining legal concepts that could put them in uncomfortable territory around the unauthorized practice of law.

They remain exactly where they should be: at the center of the relationship.

We call this the Outsourced Estate Planning Team because that's exactly what it's designed to be. It's an extension of the advisor's practice, combining estate planning technology with the human support necessary to move a family from "we should probably do this" to a completed and funded estate plan.

Estate Planning Isn't Something You Do Once

There's another limitation to thinking about estate planning as a document transaction.

Life keeps evolving.

Clients get married (and divorced). Children and grandchildren are born. Businesses are started and sold. Properties are purchased. Wealth grows. Spouses pass away. Families move between states. Relationships change.And sometimes, the client's wishes simply change.

An estate plan created today may not reflect their life ten years from now.

That's why we believe estate planning should be viewed as an ongoing part of the financial relationship.

When an advisor is involved in that process, there are natural opportunities to revisit the plan as the client's financial life evolves.

And perhaps even more importantly, estate planning creates opportunities for advisors to know the people who will eventually inherit that wealth.

• Spouses

• Children

• Grandchildren

• Beneficiaries

"At a time when our industry is preparing for one of the largest generational wealth transfers in history, that's a relationship opportunity advisors should be paying very close attention to."

The Estate Planning Solution You Choose, Matters

DIY estate planning software like Trust & Will, Vanilla.com and Wealth.com may absolutely have a place for certain people with straightforward circumstances and limited planning needs.

But that's not the point advisors should take away from this conversation.

The bigger question is 'what kind of experience you want to provide to the families who trust you'.

If you're going to introduce estate planning into your practice, are you simply giving clients access to online portals and documents? Or, are you giving them a process designed to help make sure the work actually gets completed?

At ePIC Services Company, we've always believed families deserve more than documents.

That's why the eState Plan Portfolio was designed to provide a comprehensive estate planning experience, supported by technology, a dedicated onboarding specialist, attorney review, trust funding and an Outsourced Estate Planning Team working alongside the advisor and their client.

At the end of the day, we believe that your client doesn't care how sophisticated the software was that created their documents. They care whether their family is protected.

And as their advisor, that's probably what you care about too.

If you're evaluating estate planning solutions or software for your practice, don't stop at asking what the software can create. Ask what happens after the client logs in.

• who guides them

• who handles the legal review

• how does the trust gets funded

• who follows up when the client gets busy

And most importantly, ask what percentage of clients actually make it all the way through the process.

Those answers will tell you much more about an estate planning solution than a software demo ever could.

If you'd like to learn more about ePIC Services Company, our eState Plan Portfolio and the Outsourced Estate Planning Team behind it, visit our website or schedule some time with our team to see how the ePIC estate planning process works.