Financial Literacy Month Has a Blind Spot

April is Financial Literacy Month.

It's the month when we talk about budgeting and credit scores, compound interest and retirement savings. All of it matters. But there's a concept that tends to get left out of financial literacy conversations entirely—one that affects every adult, regardless of income, age, or family structure:

Estate planning.

So I asked the Trust & Will Financial Advisor Contributor Panel: if you could add one estate planning concept to every financial literacy curriculum in the country, what would it be—and why?

The answers weren't complicated. They were human, practical, and worth adding to every conversation.

Estate Planning Isn't Just About Death

Before any specific concept can land, one foundational misconception has to be cleared up.

Al Faber, CFP®, Founder of DIWY Financial Planning hears two things come up constantly when estate planning is mentioned. The first: "I'm not rich, so I don't need one." The second: the assumption that estate planning is only relevant after someone dies.

"There's a lot more disruption around family dynamics prior," Al explained. "Someone gets sick, they're in the hospital—who can get into the house? Who can pay the bills? Who can access the bank accounts? Those are all things that are also included in the estate planning process."

An estate plan isn't only a document about what happens after you're gone. It's a set of decisions about what happens when you can't make decisions—whether temporarily or permanently. That shift in framing changes everything.

It's not just for wealthy people. Or older people. Or people with kids.

Matthew Ricks, CFP, founder of Haystack Financial Planning, has had this conversation many times—including with young adults just starting out.

"What if you're incapacitated?" he asks. "Especially if you're 28, off your parents' health care plan, and you're an adult. Who makes those decisions?"

It doesn't take a complex estate or a growing family to make basic documents worthwhile. A Power of Attorney and a healthcare directive are meaningful protections for anyone navigating adult life on their own. You don't need significant assets to benefit from having a plan. You just need to exist—and to care about what happens to you.

Never Assume Your Desired Outcome Happens by Default 

Charles Thomas III, CFP®, Founder of Intrepid Eagle Finance, keeps coming back to one thing in his client conversations: the dangerous assumption that the right outcome will just happen.

"A lot of people just assume that what they want will happen by default," he said. "And it couldn't be further from the truth."

Matthew reinforced it: "What if it's your second marriage and you didn't update everything? All of a sudden the ex is getting things they probably shouldn't have."

Outdated beneficiary designations, old life insurance policies, retirement accounts from jobs held years ago—none of these update themselves. And in the absence of clear documentation, the law doesn't read minds…they read documents. 

This gets more nuanced when family structures are complex. Charles works with many clients who have adopted children, and says assumptions around legal versus informal adoption can create real problems:

"There's a big difference between treating someone as a family member in your heart and what's actually reflected at the courthouse." Al has seen stepchildren who believed they were heirs discover otherwise—because they were never legally adopted.

The fix isn't complicated. It's documentation. It's reviewing what's in place and making sure it still matches the life you're actually living.

Think Through What Happens Next

Alan Gorlick, CEO of Gorlick Financial Strategies, encourages clients to think beyond the first step.

"You can say, 'I'm going to leave it to my kids,'" he explained. "But what if one of the kids predeceases you? What if assets pass to that child's spouse—someone you don't know, or who's been divorced since the plan was written? What if the grandchildren aren't who you imagined?"

These aren't morbid questions. They're practical ones. A well-built plan considers contingencies—not just the most likely outcome, but the ones that would matter most if things didn't go as expected.

"Once it's written, you can't challenge and say, 'Well, he didn't think of that when he wrote it,'" Alan added. "It's written, and the courts have nothing else they can do but read it."

Matthew Ricks raised a related concern around protecting generational wealth: when a parent leaves money to a child and that child goes through a divorce, what happens to those assets? There are structures—trusts with bloodline provisions, for example—that can keep inherited wealth within a family. But those tools have to be in place before they're needed.

A Plan That Only Works on Paper Isn't a Plan

Ryan L. Goldschmitt, WMCP, Founder of Geminus Wealth Partners, put it plainly.

"Estate planning is not about documents," he said. "It's about decision-making when you cannot make decisions. The real question is: who steps in, what can they actually do, and can they access what they need when it matters?"

He's seen situations where everything looked fine on paper—but nothing worked in real life. Accounts locked. Confusion. Delays. Not because there was no plan, but because the plan wasn't usable.

"A good plan is organized, accessible, and clear in intent," Ryan said. "If your plan only works on paper, it is not a plan."

This is what often gets left out of the estate planning conversation: the difference between having a plan and having a plan that functions. The right people need to know they've been named. They need to understand what they're authorized to do. And they need to be able to access what they need, when they need it.

The Concept Worth Adding to Every Curriculum

If there's a single idea to carry out of Financial Literacy Month, it's this: estate planning is a form of financial literacy. It belongs in the same conversation as budgeting, insurance, and retirement.

It doesn't require wealth. It doesn't require a family. It just requires being an adult who has preferences about what happens when you're unable to speak for yourself.

The documents don't have to be complicated. A will, a power of attorney, a healthcare directive—these are the foundations. And the conversations that build toward them don't have to be uncomfortable. They can start with a simple question: if something happened tomorrow, who would step in—and do they have what they need to do that?

That question is worth asking at any age.

Interested in partnering with Trust & Will to enhance your own clients’ estate planning needs? Learn more about how you can join over 20,000 financial advisors and firms who are delivering peace of mind to their clients by offering a comprehensive estate planning solution. Schedule a free demo today.

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