Optimizing Probate: Empower Your Clients with Digital Estate Planning
Probate. The word evokes visions of drawn-out legal proceedings, piles of paperwork, and needless stress for families going through a trying period. Financial services partners recognize the value of guiding clients through challenging financial circumstances. For loved ones, optimizing the probate process can be a game-changer when it comes to estate planning.
Digital estate planning offers game-changing services for customers and members, as well as business opportunities for your organization. Using cutting-edge technology, providers can offer clients and members a comprehensive solution that expedites the probate process, reduces expenses and guarantees a more seamless inheritance experience for their beneficiaries. You can be their hero in a time of need.
Why Is Optimizing Probate Important?
The traditional probate process can be a significant burden on families. Here are some key challenges:
Time: Probate can take months, sometimes years, to complete, leaving beneficiaries waiting to access their inheritance.
Cost: Attorney and court fees and other associated costs can significantly erode the estate’s value.
Complexity: Navigating the legalities of probate can be overwhelming for beneficiaries unfamiliar with the intricacies.
Stress: Dealing with probate on top of grieving a loved one’s loss creates immense emotional strain.
By optimizing probate, you can help your clients mitigate these challenges. Digital technology provides the optimal route for doing that.
How Digital Estate Planning Optimizes Probate
OneDigitalTrust offers a secure, user-friendly platform that simplifies estate planning and streamlines the probate process. This capability can be significant to your clients as they’re working out their estate plans and looking to protect their assets for their beneficiaries. Here’s how it can help:
Centralized Organization: Users can arrange all their assets, beneficiary designations and other important information in one location using our safe and secure platform. This guarantees that beneficiaries know precisely where to get what they need and eliminates the needless and time-consuming hunt for documentation.
Asset Inventory & Distribution: Our solution securely warehouses that thorough list as users add all their assets and liabilities. The streamlined identification and distribution notations save beneficiaries time and frustration.
Educational Materials: In the right-hand column, OneDigitalTrust provides insightful and actionable educational materials to help users make decisions about their assets. Additionally, it offers quizzes to test users’ knowledge.
Options for Handling Assets in OneDigitalTrust Estate Planning –
Assigning Beneficiaries: When the user assigns beneficiaries to their assets, probate is eliminated. The platform will show the funds that bypass probate, what the estate could owe in probate and how long probate could take. The dollar amounts and length of time both get smaller the more assets are assigned to beneficiaries.
Joint Accounts: When a couple or two other people hold an account jointly with a right of survivorship, it automatically passes to the joint account holder upon the other’s passing.
Pay on Death/Transfer on Death: The user can tell the bank or other steward of their assets that the account is to go to a particular person upon the account holder’s death.
Possibility of Family Conflict: The user can choose the probability of a family member(s) fighting for a share of the assets. This can also be factored into the probate costs and time involved inside the platform.
Once you’ve optimized your probate exposure enough, the estate may qualify for a fast-track probate, which can be just a couple of days. Each state is different, so users should ensure they know their state’s laws, rules and regulations involving probate.
Benefits for Financial Services Professionals
Offering digital estate planning services creates a competitive advantage for your firm or financial institution by enhancing your value proposition in three ways:
Stronger Client Relationships: Digital estate planning demonstrates your commitment to providing holistic wealth management solutions that address your clients’ long-term needs. This fosters more profound, loyal client relationships built on trust and personalized service.
Expanded Service Offerings: By incorporating digital estate planning into your existing portfolio, you can offer a comprehensive suite of services that caters to your clients’ evolving needs throughout their lives.
Differentiating Your Financial Advisory or Financial Institution: Digital estate planning is growing. Integrating this service positions your organization as a forward-thinking institution that prioritizes the financial well-being of its members and clients across generations.
Leading-edge digital estate planning services like OneDigitalTrust enable you to provide your clients with an effective solution for optimizing the probate process. Minimizing complexities and reducing costs helps the families you serve navigate a challenging time with greater clarity and peace of mind.
170M Americans need an estate plan. OneDigitalTrust offers a white-label, turnkey estate planning platform with pricing options tailored to the needs of individual credit unions and financial advisors.