How to Use Trust & Will’s New Advisor Platform Features

Estate planning remains a cornerstone of comprehensive financial advice. Yet, the intricacies of estate planning can often be daunting for both advisors and their clients. Recognizing this challenge, Trust & Will has released new product features to simplify the process, enabling advisors to add significant value to client relationships.

This blog post delves into how the new features—estate summary, estate plan report, and personalized insights—help advisors gain increased visibility into their clients' decisions and empower them to have proactive conversations about legacy and uncover new opportunities. Learn more about what's new!

Estate Summary

How it adds value for advisors: Once a client completes their estate plan and grants access to their advisor, a summary of all decisions will be made available within their client profile. This includes high-level information about their assets, guardians, beneficiaries, distributions, healthcare and more. Advisors can easily log in and see client’s decisions and assets, allowing them to leverage this information to open up a conversation and get to know their clients better.

How to use it in your practice: Referencing the guide on how to implement Trust & Will into your practice, advisors can review the estate plan summary once the client indicates they have completed the estate plan. After reviewing the estate summary, advisors can give clients the greenlight for the documents to be signed and notarized. Leveraging task management software to keep track of outstanding and completed action items, paired with a repeatable process can help make advisors more efficient and become a greater value-add to the families they’re working with.

For existing clients, we leverage Trust and Will’s estate summary to be proactive about our clients’ estate plan and ensure it’s up to date with their life changes. For instance, we leverage the estate summary to use in my annual meetings — seeing if there have been any updates to their life and if this is reflected in their estate plan. Clients really appreciate how proactive we’ve been with estate planning and the estate summary will help us bring more value to our relationships.

Estate Report

How it adds value for advisors: The estate plan report gives advisors a deliverable to help facilitate and guide client conversations around assets, succession, planning opportunities, and get to know their clients on a deeper level. It is a more in-depth report regarding client’s estate plan decisions and includes visualizations for succession, assets, distributions and more. Estate planning can be a complex topic for advisors and clients. This report helps visualize the client decisions and also empowers the advisor to more easily have a conversation with their clients around legacy.

How to use it in your practice: Advisors can review the estate report together with their clients who want a deeper look under the hood. If you had an “estate planning 101” meeting with a client or sent a recorded video using Loom, to discuss topics like the difference between a Trust and a Will or what happens if they pass away without a Will, you can use the estate plan report to reinforce many of those educational principles. The estate plan report can also be used in annual meetings ensuring that the client’s estate plan is reflective of any life changes.

As a practicing advisor, I think this is Trust & Will’s greatest tool when looking at assets under management, figuring out what is a probate vs non-probate asset, and may help discover other planning opportunities.

Insights

How it adds value for advisors: Insights helps advisors be proactive in bringing up estate planning opportunities that the client may not be aware of. It helps advisors to create a better client experience; while keeping estate planning top of mind. Insights are unique to each member; depending on the state they live in, if they have children, etc. In essence, they’re there to provide additional education or reminders that are unique to that member.

How to use it in your practice: Estate planning is not a set it and forget it task. There are many life events that can warrant revising your estate plan, including changes to tax laws, buying a home or acquiring new assets, getting married, starting a business and more. Paired with personalized insights, advisors can leverage the Estate Planning Checklist for Financial Advisors to stay on top of future planning opportunities. Since trust and open communication is at the core of every client relationship, advisors can review the insights and checklist to help clients be smarter and more intentional with their money and legacy.

Summary

The integration of the estate summary, estate plan report, and insights into an advisory practice is more than just a means to simplify estate planning; it's a strategy to enrich client relationships and enhance the value provided by advisors. These features offer a clear pathway for advisors to engage clients in meaningful conversations about their legacy, assets, and life changes. By leveraging them, advisors can proactively address clients’ needs, anticipate future adjustments, and ensure that estate plans remain aligned with clients’ evolving life circumstances. This approach not only demystifies what can seem like the complex realm of estate planning, but also positions advisors as indispensable partners in their clients’ financial journey. In embracing these Trust & Will, advisors are equipped to deliver exceptional value, fostering stronger, more informed, and enduring relationships with the families they serve.