There’s a huge number of your customers and clients who haven’t created a viable plan to distribute their wealth when they are gone. In fact, 65% of American adults have not created a viable plan to distribute their wealth.
The bottom line: this number hasn’t changed much in 30 years, leaving a significant population that is unprotected. Here’s why we should not be okay with these numbers:
Creating a plan to distribute your wealth is like an insurance policy. It gives you both the security and peace of mind knowing that there is a plan for your wealth when you are gone. The unintended consequences that surviving loved ones suffer through are both emotionally painful and costly. The worst part is, that if a person passes without a plan in place (aka “intestate”), the assets are distributed based upon age-old guidelines set by each state, regardless of emotional relationships forged through the individual’s lifetime. Distribution must follow a formula for inheritance, set by the state, which in many cases may be over 50 years old and coupled with a highly bureaucratic process deemed obsolete in terms of applicability in today’s day and age (e.g. unmarried partners).
So why have so many failed to plan for this eventuality?
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#1 Procrastination Perfection
If there is one thing many of us are good at, it’s procrastinating. And clearly not just with our household chores we have no interest in doing–especially when there are so many other more exciting things to do! But the truth is, no one thinks that this will happen to them, or that when they do pass away, that it will be at a ripe old age and that there’s plenty of time to plan later. It’s like we believe we are invisible to death. Unfortunately for us, we don’t have a cloak of invisibility that hides us from death until we are in our 90s.
#2 It’s Morbid
Planning for what happens with our assets after we die is morbid in and of itself. Who wants to think about death? It’s hard to not only think about death, but it’s difficult to also think about who will get a portion of your wealth when you are gone. Let’s just all be honest, and say that these topics are not necessarily fun and joyful things to consider. Your customers are feeling the same way!
#3 Toss the Salt
Don’t cross a black cat, don’t walk under a ladder and don’t break a mirror. Many are flat out superstitious about the subject. Somehow we’ve told ourselves that even thinking about death and the future is like a self-fulfilling prophecy and that if we don’t think about our own passing, it won’t happen. But throwing salt over your shoulder isn’t going to dispel death from your future. There are two things certain in life: taxes and death. So until someone creates an elixir of life, planning ahead is important!
#4 Expenses List
We understand that many feel legacy planning is costly and requires hiring expensive professionals. Why pay money to plan for a future that you aren’t in? But is anything more important than the family left behind? That’s why OneDigitalTrust’s
pricing model is really affordable and easy for institutions to bulk purchase and offer to their customers and employees.
Remember, lives change and estate planning needs to change with it. Whether someone is getting married, welcoming a new baby into your life, is bequeathed an inheritance, or has another big life change, our pricing makes it affordable to change the plan when you need to. OneDigitalTrust’s periodic estate health check is designed to enable your employees and customers ensure that their plan stays lockstep with their life-stage changes
#5 Overwhelming
Finally, estate planning can be overwhelming. Not only are each state’s statutes different, and they can change at any time, but the legalese is enough to make anyone’s head spin! For the average adult that doesn’t follow these laws and work in them regularly, it can be extremely overwhelming, causing many to avoid estate planning altogether. You can answer, or pre-populate answers, for the customer’s basic info, making it easier to encourage estate planning and get your customer started. It also makes it simple for users to create and maintain their plan through all their life stages. Our program makes it easy for you (and your customers), taking the overwhelm out of the equation.
Over 65 percent of Americans have avoided estate planning for one reason or another, but the biggest reasons center around: procrastination, access to a simple and affordable platform that users can trust, and the depressing reality of death. That is why we have
reinvented personal legacy and estate planning for the digital-age. Like a 401k, legacy and estate planning is better delivered by trusted institutions a customer is already working with. With our solutions, your customers can create a viable estate plan in a fraction of the time, headache, and complexity of the traditional process.
