A Newer, Faster, Less Expensive Way to Your Estate Plan

Dave, Becky, good afternoon.

Hey, how are you?

Excellent. How you both doing?

Good, excellent.

Happy to be here.

Thank you both for joining me today. We're recording episode 8 of our Build Your Wealth Bridge podcast. I can feel episode 100's right around the corner. So, very excited to have you both with me today. And, we've filmed a couple of these in the past. We like to call this part of our podcast series, our tech talk series. You know, part of what we do as adviserss, I know you both work with a lot of adviserss. We're always looking for new solutions we can bring to clients through technology that make their lives, you know, more efficient to better improve what they're doing from a financial planning standpoint. And so, for those at home, I'm joined today by Becky Thompson.

She's a client success manager at wealth.com, which is the platform we'll be discussing. And she's been critical in kind of getting our team set up with their platform and you know helping to prepare our process of how we're going to improve upon our client's estate plan and in addition to Becky joined by Dave Hton who's part of the legal team over at wealth.com and so I was discussing with Dave on our last call Dave's a bit of a thought leader in my opinion he's really got his finger on the pulse of what's changing in the estate planning world you know most recently you know the big beautiful bill you a lot of different changes went on inside of that document.

And so Dave's got a really good bead on, hey, what should people be doing to change their estate plan? Should be they be leaving their estate plan alone? All things of that nature. So we're very lucky to have them both here today. But as I you mentioned initially, estate planning is really the topic that we'll be discussing. And Wealth.com is approaching this in a new way that that I haven't really seen before. It seems like the triedand-true approach for our clients has always been if anything talking to us about hey do you have a referral of an attorney that we can go see and you know over the years we try and find a couple of names that are helpful to them and then you know we're kind of less involved in the process.

They go see them talk to the attorney you know they take notes on what they think is important what they need to address in terms of putting documents in place. They go home couple of weeks maybe a couple of months go by. They go back and sign them and that's it. And then they don't touch them for like 20 25 years. And so, Wealth.com is approaching this a little bit different in that they're bringing the advisor a little more into the center of that process. So, maybe I thought we'd start with that, you know, for either you Becky or Dave. I'm curious why the decision around that? Why kind of bring the adviser into the process?

You know, it's interesting. I was a former practicing estate planning attorney for the first part of my career working directly with clients and it was just like you described you know client would come in it might have been a referral from an adviser it would be the first time I had ever interacted with that person and within a 60-minute consultation I needed to draw out what all their goals and priorities are to build this estate plan that was going to last them theoretically for the rest of their lives and carry assets on through generations.

And from there, I moved over to a broker dealer where I started working directly with financial adviserss as a consultant on estate planning. And I came to realize just how incredibly critical financial adviserss are into a client's life and into their finances and how they could have helped the estate planning process. You know, if I had known what I know now, when I was a practicing attorney, I would have brought the adviser into the mix a whole lot more because they are meeting with these clients often, at least annually, and usually they know the client and they know a lot more about the client than someone's going to draw out within a 60-minute consultation.

So, it's their level of sophistication, their behavioral tendencies, their family dynamics, things that are just so important and important background that they can help make sure the client gets the best plan in place. The other thing is, you know, the estate planning numbers are so dismal. Only like a third of people have an estate plan at all. And a lot of that's because of the traditional way the estate planning has been done. It's expensive. It's burdensome. It's time consuming and financial advisors sit in such a critical role to be a key motivator to get a client across the finish line to show them why this is important, why it's a part of their financial plan along with their investments, along with their retirement plan, to make sure that they're protecting these assets for the next generation if they pass away or for themselves if they become incapacitated.

And that's why wealth.com's great to try to help make estate planning more accessible by going through those critical financial adviserss who sit in such a driver's seat to be able to direct so many clients to get these important documents in place.

Yeah. And I feel like it cuts both ways because from the advisor side, we may have more intimate knowledge about our clients circumstances and family situations, but we don't have the technical skill to write their estate planning documents ourselves. That's where a lot of adviserss are lacking. It's always kind of in church and state. And so I think wealth.com does a good job of bringing those two worlds together. And Becky, I don't know if you could maybe help me on kind of describing logistically for people that say, "Okay, you know what?

I do want to try this kind of new way of doing things where not I'm not going to see an attorney. I kind of want to do it through my advisor. You know what does that look like and who's actually writing the documents when I get that done?

So our documents u you know they are state specific documents drafted by you know attorneys in you know that that are in our network and they the client process is fairly straightforward. They are sent an invitation you know to access the platform. They answer a couple of basic questions whether they're married, whether they have an estate plan and their state of residence and based on you know an evaluation of just a brief evaluation outlining their goals they are then matched with a plan along with a description about why that plan is selected for them.

They'll also have access to, you know, our support team, US-based support team and, through every step of the process. And then they can also, if they want to request an attorney consultation to go over more specific questions that they have. So the whole experience, you know, for the client is really meant to be intuitive, self-guided, and help them to actually feel empowered to understand what's going on in their documents. Because that's another thing I saw, you know, working in private law firms, too, is is clients are handed documents and they don't really know what is going on in their documents.

You know, an attorney has drafted them. They really weren't a part of that drafting process too much. They just had an attorney put it together and say that this is what they need. And I think that the that that trend is you know going more towards people wanting to understand the why behind their plan and really be making informed decisions you know for themselves.

Okay. Okay. And yeah, kind of going back to what Dave had initially mentioned about you know the traditional process and some of the reasons why people don't put an estate plan in place. And the big ones to me seem to be number one, it's time consuming. Particularly if you again, you're having a couple meetings with an attorney. They have busy schedules and maybe it takes you a couple of months to put it in place. And cost I know is another big one. It's not cheap to engage with an attorney.

I feel like when people hear about a solution like wealth.com, when it's new, even though you've got a whole staff of attorneys, you know, the advisers evolved, it's a little more efficient from a technology standpoint. Their first thought is, well, the quality must not be as good. And I don't think that's the case. I think in some sense it's even better. But could you maybe hit on, you know, both of those things like from a timing perspective, it takes a lot less time to put these documents in place with Wealth.com.

But I think the question people ask themselves is like are all the questions being covered then if it's taking me less time and then again in terms of the cost from my standpoint I think it's less costly because just it's just more efficient and the advisor is involved in it but I think the assumption is well if it costs less the quality must not be you know as good. So can you kind of address those thoughts and why they might be you know mis mislabeled in a sense?

Yeah, I'm happy to address certainly the quality issue and maybe we can have Becky address, you know, the time it takes to go through the platform and kind of how that works and why it's so efficient. But, you know, from a quality standpoint, I think that the way that traditional attorneys are engaging with clients is not unlike how this process will go. You know, you uncover the goals and priorities based on questions that are directed at those. They're not legal questions. They're not saying, "Do you need a marital trust?" It's saying, "Are you concerned about your spouse's ability to manage the finances if you're on if you pass away?" is your net worth over this certain amount?

So, it draws down to what your best match is. Now, there are going to be circumstances where clients have situations where it's more sophisticated, they need more custom drafting, they have a special needs child where an attorney will need to be involved in order to help them through that process. And that's why we have that attorney network available. But in a lot of circumstances, and I think attorneys they might be hesitant to admit this, but they would admit this, that in a lot of circumstances, these clients fit into a situation where their goals and priorities match a certain profile that is able to create a plan for them that's flexible and able to meet everything that they need without custom drafting, without a lot of handholding.

And I think that's what Wealth.com helps to solve for is all of those hundreds of thousands of clients who I say don't have a plan in place. And I actually don't like to say that because everyone has a plan in place. It's just did you create the documents or did the state legislature create them for you, right?

And obviously that's going to involve the court. It's going to involve judges. So getting these documents in place is something that every single person needs regardless of age, regardless of net worth. And they just don't have them in place. And so having an accessible way to be able to go through that process because procrastination is such a big part of this. And if people don't have an accessible, easy way to get these critical documents in place, then they're just not going to do it. And that's just all the worse.

So it was important to us to build a platform that's sophisticated in that it addresses the client's needs. It addresses things like estate taxes with flexible estate tax planning. Trusts for descendants where you can protect beneficiaries from creditors or their spouse or let's be honest themselves. And you know have all those levels of sophistication but keep them flexible so that it can it can apply to a wide variety of client net worths ages and things of that nature. So really the idea behind the platform is keep it flexible.

Make sure that as many people as possible this applies to but always have attorneys available if necessary whether it be for client comfort or because their level of sophistication requires it.

Yeah. And I'll just you know kind of piggyback off that. I think you know a lot of the timing that that is the reason it takes a lot more time whenever you're going through an attorney is is you have to go to the attorney's office during their working hours. So that means you have to take time off work in most cases you know to go and visit with this attorney for an hour and you know maybe they can get it done in 60 minutes but often that's split up into you know a couple of meetings they have to come back and sign the documents.

It's a lot, right? And Wealth.com clients can create their documents in the comfort of their own home u typically within about 25 to 45 minutes depending on you know the complexity of their situation and you know just how comfortable they are going through the document workflow. And then you know the documents are ready within 45 seconds. They can print them. They can have them printed and shipped directly. And we recently too just started offering advisors to be able to request a remote notary. And that's going to be a big you know time lift for people too.

Not having to schedule time to go in somewhere, bringing in two witnesses with the notary. You know, it's it's kind of like a big signing party. So that's going to reduce some of the time spent for clients going through the process as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think just that ease of use goes along with the time savings as well. Like you said, being able to from the comfort of your home. There's one case we've already used wealth.com with for a client where they didn't have to leave their home. It took probably an hour to go through all the questions. And I think one other thing that's nice about having the advisor is kind of that guide along the process was there were a couple of questions that that came up and as you mentioned you've got staff you got a couple different resources you can use as you're going through that initial process.

There's a chat you can use. You can book time with an attorney even after your initial documents are drafted if you want to get more specific about certain questions. And there were even one or two where I'm like you know what I'm not sure and I think Welsh got the answer on this but I just want to clarify it. So let me dig into that for you. So it just I think was a lot more user friendly in that regard. But I think you know by covering you know saving the amount of time at a better cost and just an easier experience whilst hitting all the high notes with why people solving the problems for why people haven't you know been proactive in drafting their documents in the past.

And on that note of proactivity, I know one thing that was striking to me before, the recent bill was resolved and signed, was the proactivity of attorneys who drafted documents for clients in the past, saying, "Hey, you might want to review this. You know, the laws may change. This is a good time to do this." I know I was just in the wealth client portal today looking at all the resources that your team has to educate clients and even if you maybe could hit on that Zillow feature I thought was really interesting for people that are moving between states.

Can you maybe speak to how wealth even after they draft these documents for clients are kind of staying on top of people's situations and helping them to revisit their documents? Yeah, I think I think you know the educational resources are critical and I mean financial adviserss are not attorneys and the clients are needing to go through this process with their adviser as a helpful guide, but again they're not an attorney either. So having those educational resources and those attorneys available are just really critical to help them through the process where if there's a frequently asked question or there's something that they're getting tripped up on, they have resources available whether it's internal to wealth or external.

And then, you know, with things like the one big beautiful bill and keeping people updated on these kind of trends in the law, how it may affect them, we really try to be proactive with it. The good thing about something like Wealth.com is it's not it doesn't have the same kind of stringent policies as a broker dealer or an RAIA where you have to go through compliance, you know, in order to get some of these resources out. Certainly, we're careful to make sure they're all accurate, but there's a little bit less friction there to be able to get this out as soon as possible.

So, we try to do it proactively with emails, certainly blog posts, and on the website, having a lot of different materials available. And I'll let Becky speak to that Zillow feature, but there are features even within the platform that will prompt people being able to be educated.

Yeah. You know, we have a Zillow integration. So, clients one are going to receive real time value for, you know, their home address. And if they mark, you know, that their residence has changed, you know, they'll be prompted to update their estate plan accordingly based on that state of residence.

Yeah, I think that's awesome. And I just think that's something I've never seen, and again, this is not to compare Wealth.com to Wealth.com to the traditional attorney approach, but I've just I've never seen an attorney be able to identify when people have moved because a lot of times people aren't telling their attorney that they've moved. States and then triggering them to say, "Hey, you should review your documents." So, I think that automation is just fantastic for people to be able to have access to. One thing that brings me to, and Dave, this is in reference to Dave wrote a really great article on Michael Kitsus' website about a month or so ago.

I know one thing our clients like to get out of this when they listen to these types of podcasts is like, who is this a good fit for? And I think you did a really good job of breaking down to like three main client types at different age groups and the things they should be thinking about when it comes to their estate plan. So I didn't know if you would wouldn't mind kind of digging into that a little deeper and kind of breaking this down into the different client types that this is appropriate for.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I said it earlier, you know, everyone has an estate plan just whether you put it together or the state put it together. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what your net worth is. As long as you're over the age of majority, you probably need something in place. And you know, as you go across the age lines and net worth lines, the level of sophistication changes, but provisions and documents change, but your need to have something doesn't change.

And so as early as 18 years old, and a lot of parents don't think about this because, you know, their children are dependent on their tax return, their dependence on their health insurance policy, they live under their roof. Maybe they're sending them off to college. But a lot of people don't think about, well, what happens if they become incapacitated? What if they get into a car accident? What if something you know we know college what if something happens at college and you know they befall something that renders them unable to make decisions on their own behalf.

Will the parents be able to make decisions for them? Well, maybe not if they don't have any documents in place. They might have to go to a judge to get that in place. And so even starting that early, people need powers of attorney and healthcare powers of attorney at the very least. And we all know 18-year-olds are not going to go and get those documents done themselves. They're just not they feel like they're invincible. And so that's why it's great to have an area where a financial advisor even if they're initially going through the parent to prompt the children to get it in place and having an easy accessible way to get those documents done.

I think that's really critical. And then as you're getting older, you know, children are having their own children themselves. They may just be starting out in their career. They may not have built up a substantial net worth or income yet, but they still need a plan in place, especially for the guardians of those minor children to make sure that if something happens, they have a plan in place for who is going to take care of those children. You know, a lot of circumstances there's two spouses when we're talking about children.

That's two sets of in-laws. So there's a discussion to be had there to avoid a fight and hopefully you can come to an agreement and you'll have documents in place that will make that process much more seamless for everybody. And then obviously as time goes on that's when net worth increases and clients start to have to need things like trusts and provisions to protect the children from divorce and creditors and then estate tax provisions. And then of course as you move into the later years you're thinking about legacy and what legacy do I want to leave behind.

So every single client that a person has as well as those clients children who are over the age of majority have some kind of need for estate planning. And I say this a lot you know if you walk up to someone randomly on the street and you ask them is it important to have a will or important to have an estate plan? They're almost always going to say well yes. And then your next question will be like, "Well, do you have that?" And they'll say, "No." You know, which is is wild.

Yeah. I need to get on that. Been needing to.

Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. Exactly. But it's just that's the way the system has been set up. It's just not accessible. It's not easy. It's expensive. And people put it off as long as possible even though they know it's important. So making it accessible hopefully will bring those numbers up.

Yeah. And I think Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Becky.

Yeah. I was just going to say also too, you know, just being able to go in and update their documents whenever their decision changes too. I think that that flexibility reduces some of the anxiety that that comes with creating an estate plan. A lot of people when they're putting together their estate plan, you know, there's this permanency feeling about it. Especially, you know, young parents selecting a guardian for their minor children. You know, their kids are probably, you know, young when they're first starting it out.

They can't really necess like plan for a 16-year-old, 17year-old maybe at that point. You know, their guardian selection would change. And so, I think that that's another, you know, big benefit to Wealth.com is clients can go in and update their plan whenever they want. The most inconvenient thing about updating their estate plan is just having to sign it again.

Yeah. I think that I was going to say the same thing that accessibility is key and I think also being able to do it. I don't know if this the right term but peace meal over time as you hit those different life points like for those I think each of those groups reminds me of clients that I have first of all the younger children that just turned 18 like they just are not going to put wills and trusts in place at that age. They're just not even their parents I think would say they don't need that yet.

But putting that power of attorney in place and being able to do that in like 20 30 minutes is just fantastic. Then you could say that's taken care of. If something happens to them, they're in the hospital. We know we're going to be able to present this and help them immediately. There's going to be no slowdown in that process. And then I work with, you know, my myself is a good example. I'm 30. And like a month before I got married, I just felt the same like I don't need a will and trust yet.

Like my life's about to change. So like why would I get these documents drafted? Then like 2 months after I got married, I felt way behind the eightball of like, yeah, now we got to get everything together and if we're going to have a kid in a year, we need to have these documents. And so that's what I think is tricky about that like 30 to 40 stage is just feeling like you don't need it and maybe having, you know, a good argument as to why you don't need it and then feeling like you're so far behind once of those big life events happens.

And then particularly, you know, I know we had talked about these documents drafted state by state. You know, our firm's based in Illinois. A lot of our clients are Illinois based. You know, as their lives change in their 50s and 60s, we've got a lot of clients that have accumulated a lot more wealth than they had in their 30s and 40s. Illinois's got a state specific estate tax problem. And so, in being able to go back and review what you drafted in your 30s and 40s and start taking a look at do I need to change the strategies I'm using to kind of mitigate any estate tax I'm going to owe.

Is it's great to be able to just continue go back to that same portal. You know, you don't have to worry about the attorney you worked with 20 25 years ago leaving the firm. You know, now you don't have access to the documents. It's all in the same place. So, I just like that that continuity there. It's so, you know, particularly on that last group of people that have accumulated wealth. I know wealth.com's got some great tools, that help people take a look at, you know, if they're going to owe estate tax and looking at states like Illinois.

Can you maybe speak to some of those resources that I really think kind of takes, you're from above and beyond from just being a document preparation tool to truly an estate planning tool?

Yeah, I think, you know, it's important. I come from Massachusetts. The estate tax threshold is 2 million. Which is really low, right, in comparison to most states. And you know, especially, you know, with real estate values, people get there really quickly and they have an estate tax issue. So it's important that everyone knows that a trust is not a trust a trust like you know there are different components of a revocable trust beyond just probate avoidance that can really help a person to preserve assets from the taxes and with wealth.com the way that we built the documents was to make sure that if you're getting a revocable trust in place no matter who you are you're going to have the ability to plan for estate taxes through what's called a disclaimer trust.

So when the first spouse dies, the surviving spouse is always going to have the ability within 9 months to disclaim assets to what's called a credit shelter trust. And that's really important for state estate taxes purposes. You don't necessarily need to know all the nuances of why, but it's really important that if your client is over the state estate tax limit, either one of them, then in all likelihood, a credit shelter trust is really important. And sometimes you don't know where their net worth is going to go or whether they're going to move and whether this is going to be necessary.

So, you don't necessarily want to put really rigid provisions in place. You just want to have that available. And so that's what we've tried to build with wealth.com is these flexible tools where if one spouse is to pass away, they have the ability to do estate tax planning if necessary at that time looking at what their net worth is and looking at what state they are in and what the tax law is at that time. And then even we thought about it when it comes to a situation where okay but you know this is a blended marriage a blended family or you know it's a second marriage so I don't necessarily want my spouse to have the ability to disinherit my children.

There's the ability to still do the estate tax planning and put a different party in place to be able to make that decision of whether to plan for estate taxes. You could put an executive in place with what's called the Clayton Q-Tip election. So we were really cognizant of that that this platform is built, you know, with financial advisors as the primary customer for their clients. Their clients in all likelihood are going to have investable assets. They're going to be pretty successful on their own right.

We need to have provisions in place to help them with estate taxes both from the state perspective and the federal perspective because right now we're in a situation under this one big beautiful bill the estate tax exemption is really high and there's probably a small percentage of clients who fit in that realm. But I do get concerned that that's going to cause complacency and procrastination and people aren't going to realize that who knows in four years the political winds could shift and that could come way down.

There were pro proposals out there prior to the election saying it could come down to 3.5 million or we could lose a step up in basis. So really important to have flexible documents in place to be able to address these concerns.

Yeah. Yeah. And one thing you had mentioned when you talked about hey we want to make sure we have all the proper provisions in there. I feel like one thing we've been talking about for most of the podcast is document creation. But I'm sure with there's a number of our clients out there like, "Hey, I've had an attorney I've worked with for 30 years, you know, I just redid those documents like four or five years ago." I think they're in a good place. But one thing having done my own estate plan recently, is just realizing how thick those documents are when you're finally done with them.

And so, I think something that's equally important that wealth brings to the table is helping people to understand those documents in a much more consolidated format. So, again, for either of you, could you maybe speak to I think it's Ester is the main tool, that advisers can use to help their clients better understand what's in their documents.

Yeah, Ester is the our AI extraction tool that can read and summarize existing estate planning documents and put together either a visual report or a nice executive summary that just outlines the key decisions in those documents. And the other thing is that we also have a visualizer report that's available for the documents that are generated within wealth.com. You know by clients can see this visualizer report so they can easily see the decisions that they've made you know when either updating their documents or creating them for the first time through the platform.

On the so the visualizer it's going to be a nice flowchart indicating you know these are the trustees these are the executives and then on the u you know left-hand side it's going to be educational material so like what is a trustee what's the role of the successor trustee if they opted you know for a marital trust what are the key benefits of that marital trust descendants trust so it goes on an Ester you know it used to I used to do estate plan reviews, reading, you know, complex trust documents that, and you're right, they're thick most of the time.

And it used to take a good, you know, hour to two hours depending on the document that I was working with. And Ester can pull the key information, you know, within about 90 seconds. I always tell advisers, you know, it's very much a co-pilot, not an autopilot. Still requires, you know, you to come in and verify that the information is accurate. But we make it as easy as possible for you to do so by including hyperlinks. You know, there's blocks that reference where this specific information was found.

And we also just released a Q&A feature, too. You know that if you're looking for a specific distribution schedule or some key component of the document, you can search through that Q&A and it's going to pull in the four top language learning models what their answer is and give you the sources like where it found that information. Yeah, I think that consolidation piece is really key because that one client case comes to mind we use the platform for where an estate plan can be layered where if something happened to her basically her trust said you know it was going to go to her husband and then her children and then I think somebody else and then ultimately was going to be her brother and sister where actually at the time for one reason or another she did not have her brother as part of her estate plan.

So he was like would have been like fifth in line but he had he was not in the estate planning documents. Circumstances changed and now she wanted them him to be a part of the documents and they had actually just redone their documents with an attorney. But it just got missed and I could see why it got missed because it was like you know what you look at like the top three layers of beneficiaries. You don't always look at like that fourth or that fifth or you're not thinking about making that change.

But in using that Ester tool, it really consolidated things to look, okay, here's first in line, second in line, third in line. And then when we looked at that fourth in line, you know, she had said, hey, why isn't my brother listed there? And, you know, we of course didn't know the answer to that question. But the good news is we, you know, was something that could be flagged easily and changed.

And it's just it's so efficient. I, you know, my role when I was at a broker dealer, an advanced planning team, one of my biggest roles was reviewing estate plans. And we'd have to tell advisors, you know, it's going to take three to five business days. Because, you know, just because of volume and it takes time to read through these documents. Even as an attorney having a level of sophistication, knowing how to read the documents, it still takes time to find where things are because those documents are long and they're drafted in all different ways where provisions are put in places that aren't necessarily logical all the time.

And so having that extraction tool is such an incredible timesaver to be able to boil down a 100page document into a one to twopage summary that only hits the high points of things that are really critical so that you can say okay I you know especially for a client I can understand this trust just by looking at this one page without needing to read a hundred pages of legal ease and then you know if there's something outside of that perview. The adviser can always go into that Q&A feature and ask, you know, is this a grantor trust or does this trust account for special needs? Things of that nature, you know, if they want to get a little bit more nuanced beyond the basic summary.

And one thing, you know, you mentioned access to a variety of different attorneys that are on your staff. You know, one thing I think particularly for clients that are a generation above me, I've noticed that they're very comfortable getting to know someone in person. Hey, I've had my attorney for 20 years. They were re recommended by your firm or somebody that I trust. I always think when we're implementing a new platform like this into our services, thinking what would clients have objections to? And I could see clients thinking like, hey, how is this going to work?

You know, I don't have a designated attorney I'm going to go to. I can book a consultation. Is it going to be the same attorney every time? How is Wealth.com vetting these attorneys? You know, what's their standard for, you know, the quality of attorney that they're working with? Can you kind of speak to that and maybe put that concern to rest?

Yeah, I can speak to the vetting of attorneys. And maybe Becky, if you want to speak to the process of matching them up.

Basically what happens is we're only vetting people who are trust in the States attorneys or primarily their practice is trust in the States. So, these are not going to be like general practice, you know, real estate attorneys who dabble in estate planning every now and then. We make sure that they are estate planning attorneys and we fill it out through all the states to make sure that no matter what state a client is in, they're going to have a resource available to have an attorney available.

If they need a consultation or if they need, let's say, a deed prepared to fund their trust, they're going to have one available. We're very careful to make sure that they have the requisite level of experience, years of service, and we make sure that we vet them in interview them, make sure that they have a level of sophistication that we want, but also that they take a look at the wealth.com documents, they become comfortable with them, they do a training on the platform so that when the client is going to see this attorney, they understand what platform they went through and that they're going to be able to provide solid advice rather than say I have no idea what this is.

You know, I just received this referral. I'm gonna have to familiarize ourselves with it. We try to make sure that each of these attorneys are vetted. They're qualified and it's going to be a good experience for the client because obviously that's important for the advisor for Wealth.com and for the client. And so we're really careful that we white glove that approach to make sure they're going to get a good experience. Yeah. And adviserss too, they can sit in on the call with clients if the clients you know elect for that when they fill out the request form.

So the way the process works like they're in their client portal, they click you know into their initials on the top right and select consult an attorney from the drop down and they will fill out just a basic request form like do they have questions about their estate plan? Are they trying to have a deed transferred over? And if there's any other comments and that's when our support team is going to reach out to them to just get a couple you know so the additional details to run a conflict check and get a limited scope agreement you know mapped out because it is a you know attorney client relationship at that point and they're matched with an attorney within about 10 days that's also to when the support team is going to send over the bio for the attorney the way you know that It's we some states, most states, we have more than one attorney, you know, in the network and it typically goes based kind of like roundroin like who's the soonest that's available and also who is like the best fit for it.

For example, if a client is needing bespoke drafting, a special needs trust, we might have one attorney on, you know, in network who is better equipped to handle that drafting over someone else. But typically within about 10 days, they're matched with an attorney. They have that consultation. Again, if they want that their adviser to be on the call, they can be on there as well, which I do find to be a little bit helpful, you know, because the attorneys, they're really great. They don't speak they speak in plain language for the most part, but it just having somebody else there, the adviser there to support the clients, you know, can be helpful for them.

Yeah. And frankly, I would rather have your company be vetting those individuals than myself as an adviser because I feel like that's how we've done it historically is we've just tried to find qualified people in Illinois that we trust and we see them do good work over a number of years and then we've consider them a referral source. But I think this just increases the chances they get someone great right out of the gate. You know, I feel like your firm is a little you're not really biased at all on who you choose because you got to be concerned about getting attorneys for each state.

So, I think it's great that we can just have that process flow through your firm. One thing, final thing that I was thinking about after people create their documents and they update it throughout the years that's not necessarily intuitive when you engage with wealth.com is this idea. We run into this a lot when people pass away, is that they don't have their house in order. They're not organized. They did all the proper planning to have their documents drafted, but they're just maybe private people and they didn't share with their kids where those documents are at.

Again, maybe they had them drafted 20 years ago and the law firm they worked with is no longer in business. Now, they got a crisis on their hands where they can't find the documents or their kids can't find the documents and they don't know how things need to be directed after they pass. One great feature I stumbled upon when I was getting set up with wealth.com was, you know, the availability of this vault. And not only the vault, but having an ability to kind of tee things up before you pass to have those documents flow to the designated individuals you want them going to after you pass.

So, could you kind of speak to that process a little bit and how this is, I think, a twoin one solution. You can create your state plan documents, but you can also kind of plan for things after you die. Yeah, it's like a the plat the client profile, the client platform is is kind of like a centralized hub for all things estate planning, but they can also use that vault for more than just estate planning documents. They can keep tax information in there. They can keep marriage certificates, adoption, divorce decree, and they can also elect to add two emergency contacts.

So, if something were to happen, that that emergency contact would have access to the estate report, all of the documents in the vault, and the contacts as well. Let Dave speak to this more, but, you know, of course, if something were to happen to the client, you know, they'd want those original documents. But having access to the electronic copies can certainly be helpful for whoever is managing the estate.

Yeah, I think it's critical. I mean, just coming from private practice and seeing it over the years, you'd be shocked how many people have lost their documents, any evidence of their documents at all. We even have people who say, you know, I want to amend my trust because I know this account is titled in the name of the trust, but I don't have the trust. And, you know, that's problematic. So having electronic copies, having available to that vault is really important. Obviously, it's still critical because these are estate planning documents in a lot of states.

The original wet ink signature document is what's going to ultimately need to be presented to the court in a lot of circumstances. So, really critical that they still are thinking about keeping these documents in a safe place in a safe whatnot within their home and making sure that people know where those documents are. But even there, that's something that the vault can help with, right? You can put in a letter of instruction that says these list of documents are in this safe, you know, perhaps this is the combination or whatever the case may be on how they want to set that up.

So, yeah, it's a really great organizational tool that not a lot of people have. And it is a great point to make that, you know, attorneys retire, attorneys pass away. You know, I've heard the statement before, well, you know, what happens if wealth.com goes out of business? I certainly don't think that's the case, but I think it's far more likely that your attorney's going to retire and you're going to have trouble contacting them, then you're not going to be able to get access to this electronic system there. You put the documents. So I think it's a really great tool that makes things a lot easier for people.

Yeah. And that emergency contact designation, I think, is awesome, too. I kind of had run through the gauntlet with Wealth.com staff. Just running through different scenarios because I know parents, some parents who are very private, their biggest concern is their children, let's say they're the emergency contacts, having access to their information before they pass, but they just have a really good system where, you know, they you can allow those emergency contacts, I believe, to request, you know, that information when someone passes. But I said, well, what if you just have a falling out with your kids and they say, "Hey, we want to get access to mom and dad's stuff." you're alerted of it immediately while you're still living.

There's verification that you have to go through before they, you know, give you visibility to those documents. So, it really is a great way to get things set up, but maintain your privacy while you're still alive. So, I think the way that they've set up that emergency contact kind of process is is great. But those were really all the main items I thought would be helpful to cover today and I think you both covered them very well. But, any other areas I neglected to hit on that you think are important for our clients to know as we start rolling this new partnership out with Wealth.com?

I mean, I don't have any. I think this was a great discussion. I really appreciate

Yeah. The ability to come on here and talk about what a great solution it is and estate planning is important for everyone. So, I don't care how you get it done, whether it's throughout.com or you go to an attorney, use a different service, it's so important to get those numbers up. So, I really like having the platform to be able to talk about these things.

Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead, Jackie. Go ahead.

No, I agree. You know it's awesome to be you know speaking with you today and I don't have anything else to add.

Okay. Well, I appreciate you both being here and I mentioned this to Becky and Dave on our first call and truly I don't say this about every new solution that we roll out but I do think this one's going to be a gamecher because like Dave mentioned everybody ha they already have an estate plan but they everyone needs you know a more structured estate plan. It's just something everybody has to deal with no matter, you know, what your age you're at as long as you're older than 19.

It's something that you need to address. And so having a way to do that much more efficiently than we have in the past. And allowing us to be part of that process is critical because a lot of, you know, the accounts that we have here need to be titled a certain way and we need to have beneficiaries on them. So I think that integration of bringing the adviser into the conversation is just fantastic. So my hats off to wealth.com. Very excited to talk about this with clients. And Becky and David, again, thank you both for joining me today.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

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