Divorce can create significant shifts in a client’s life, and these changes are not only emotional but financial. For financial advisors and institutions, it’s essential to help divorcees navigate the complexities of updating their estate plans to reflect their new circumstances. A major part of this process includes reviewing and updating wills and trusts to reflect the client’s changed relationships. Clients may have previously named their ex-spouse as a beneficiary or executor, and those provisions need to be updated to ensure that their estate plan aligns with their current wishes. The OneDigitalTrust financial platform allows financial advisors to assist their clients’ in creating and updating their estate plans, ensuring all necessary changes are reflected.
Updating Beneficiary Designations
One of the most important tasks after a divorce is revisiting beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and other financial accounts. Often, beneficiary designations don’t automatically update after a divorce, and clients may unintentionally leave assets to an ex-spouse or other unintended parties. With OneDigitalTrust, financial advisors can track these critical updates and receive alerts when beneficiaries need to be revised, ensuring that these changes aren’t overlooked.
Guardianship and Trusts for Children
For clients with minor children, naming a guardian and establishing a plan for their financial care is essential. Advisors should assist in determining the appropriate guardians and ensure that an estate plan is properly set up to manage the children’s inheritance until they reach adulthood. The OneDigitalTrust financial advisor portal helps advisors easily aid their client’s with these decisions, ensuring that guardianship and trust arrangements are properly documented and accessible. This can be especially important when complex family dynamics come into play, as many divorcees have children from previous relationships and need a detailed plan to safeguard their children’s financial futures.
Additionally, the OneDigitalTrust platform accounts for these unique family dynamics within its tools. For example, the “Myself” screen allows users to select their marital status, including the option to indicate a divorce. When adding children to an estate plan, clients can also specify if the children are from a current or previous relationship or are a stepchild from a spouse’s prior relationship. This flexibility ensures that estate plans reflect a client’s family structure with precision.
Managing Shared Property and Assets
Many divorcees also need to address shared property and assets. If a client and their ex-spouse jointly own property or have assets together, it’s important to review how these assets will be managed or divided. Using the OneDigitalTrust platform, financial advisors can track client assets and provide reminders to their clients to update legal and financial documents related to shared property, making sure everything is accounted for in the estate plan.
Helping Divorcees Protect Their Assets and Children
For financial advisors, assisting divorcees with their estate planning process is an opportunity to deepen relationships and offer holistic solutions. By addressing key areas such as updating wills, revising beneficiary designations, and ensuring proper guardianship and financial protection for children, advisors can help clients navigate the complexities of life after divorce.
Leveraging estate planning platforms like the OneDigitalTrust platform streamlines this process, offering tools to monitor estate plan updates, manage documents, and keep clients on track as they make important changes. Features like the ability to account for divorce in marital status and specify the relationships of children further enhance the platform’s functionality, ensuring that estate plans accurately represent the client’s wishes and family structure.
A well-executed estate plan can offer peace of mind to divorcees during a challenging time and provide lasting security for their children and loved ones. By guiding clients through this process and providing the tools to manage their estate plans effectively, advisors can help ensure that divorcees protect their assets and secure their children’s future.