Estately is an innovative software solution launched by FreeWill, a social-good enterprise specializing in the intersection of philanthropy and estate planning. This platform is designed to enable financial advisors to offer comprehensive estate planning services as an integral part of their wealth management practices.
Key Purpose
Estately allows financial advisors to centrally guide each step of the estate planning process, addressing a critical need in the wealth management industry. With the anticipated $84 trillion Great Wealth Transfer, estate planning has become a pivotal service for financial advisors to retain and attract clients.
Key Features and Functionality
Unified Platform for Estate Planning
Estately is the first platform to combine both digital self-drafted and attorney-drafted estate planning documents on a single unified platform. This integration caters to the full spectrum of clients, from those seeking simple, self-directed solutions to those requiring more complex, attorney-led estate plans.
Client-Facing Technology
- Clients can use a guided questionnaire to determine which estate planning documents they need, such as wills, revocable living trusts, financial powers of attorney, and advanced healthcare directives.
- The platform generates these documents with all necessary signature pages, schedules, and addendums, ready for execution.
Attorney-Led Services
For clients requiring more complex or personalized estate plans, Estately partners with a network of estate-planning attorneys across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These attorneys can provide services ranging from simple plan walkthroughs to designing and executing complex estate plans for high-net-worth individuals.
Advisor Oversight and Integration
Financial advisors can track the progress of their clients’ estate plans through a personal dashboard. This dashboard allows advisors to download document packages, view a visual plan summary, and stay involved in the process without engaging in activities that could be considered the illegal practice of law. The platform includes multiple CRM integrations to facilitate seamless interaction with client information.
Compliance and Legal Guardrails
Estately includes “guardrails” to ensure that financial advisors do not inadvertently engage in the illegal practice of law. The platform is designed to make it easy for advisors to assist with legally permissible activities while preventing them from overstepping their legal boundaries.
Comprehensive Document Coverage
The platform offers a wide range of estate planning documents, including wills, revocable living trusts with pour-over wills, durable financial powers of attorney, advanced healthcare directives, HIPAA authorizations, and beneficiary designations. These documents are available and compliant across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Centralized Workflow and Visibility
Estately improves oversight and visibility into clients’ workflows, centralizing what is often a fragmented user journey involving multiple third-party services or proprietary software. This centralization aligns estate planning outputs with other financial planning decisions, enhancing the overall efficiency and completion rate of estate planning processes.
By combining advanced technology, comprehensive document coverage, and the option for both self-directed and attorney-led services, Estately provides a robust and user-friendly solution for financial advisors to offer high-quality estate planning services to their clients.
