Vanilla

Dec 18, 2025

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How Financial Advisors Add Estate Planning Value

As your clients’ lives evolve, so should their estate plan. Your role as their financial advisor is to guide them through each stage, ensuring their plans stay relevant and aligned with their goals while working alongside estate attorneys to protect what they’ve built.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how to position your estate planning services and deliver real value throughout the entire estate planning process.

Why estate planning requires wealth management expertise

For even simple estates, clients need professional help beyond drafting documents. They need someone who understands how their wealth connects to their legacy goals. While their estate attorney handles the legal requirements, you bring financial expertise that shapes the entire strategy.

Clients who attempt DIY estate planning or work with an attorney without financial coordination can easily miss tax-saving opportunities, create plans that conflict with their account structures, and fail to update beneficiary designations. From your position as their financial advisor, you can prevent these costly gaps by offering:

• Tax efficiency and wealth preservation strategies

Because you understand the financial implications of estate and inheritance taxes, you can model different scenarios, showing clients how various strategies affect their tax liability and what their heirs will actually receive.

Recommend strategies such as annual gifting within IRS limits, charitable giving techniques, or structuring accounts to maximize step-up in basis. Identify when clients need trusts for tax purposes, then connect them with an attorney to create those structures if they are not already working with one. 

• Coordinated financial and legal planning

Review their existing legal documents with their financial picture in mind. Does their trust structure align with their asset allocation strategy? Do their beneficiary designations align with their will?

When you spot misalignment, facilitate conversations between your client and their estate attorney. You can provide the financial context attorneys need to draft effective documents and talk through the financial implications of different legal structures.

• Valuable financial oversight

Without guidance from a financial advisor, clients can make expensive estate planning mistakes: they title assets incorrectly, forget to fund their trusts, or name their estate as an IRA beneficiary, triggering unnecessary taxes.

You can catch these errors before they become problems by reviewing account titling, beneficiary designations, and asset ownership structures. Create checklists to help clients complete every step their attorney recommends to ensure the financial execution matches the legal plan.

• Ongoing plan maintenance

Life changes constantly. Your clients marry, divorce, have children, sell businesses, move states – the list goes on. Their estate plans have to evolve with them.

Schedule regular reviews, prompting updates when major life events occur. Monitor tax law changes that affect estate planning strategies and ensure beneficiary designations stay current across all accounts. Software like Vanilla Document Builder allows your clients to make proactive updates to their documents when necessary. Vanilla Attorney Network allows you to coordinate with their estate attorney to review any changes and make adjustments to the financial components when attorney guidance is needed.

Common estate planning gaps (and how financial advisors can address them)

One of the most meaningful ways you can make an impact on your clients’ estate planning is to help identify common mistakes they might easily overlook:

• Misaligned beneficiary designations

Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and other financial instruments pass directly to named beneficiaries, bypassing the will or trust entirely. Review these designations regularly to make sure they match your client’s current wishes and overall estate strategy.

When you find outdated designations, help clients update them immediately. 

• Asset ownership and titling issues

How assets are owned and titled determines how they transfer at death. An attorney may create a trust to avoid court administration, but if assets aren’t transferred into it, the client’s estate may still need to undergo probate. Review all account titling with your client’s goals in mind. Identify which assets should be retitled and guide clients through the funding process. Recommend changes when needed and coordinate with their attorney to ensure proper titling that achieves the intended legal and tax outcomes. 

• Missing or inadequate life insurance

Calculate whether your client’s estate has sufficient liquidity to cover taxes, debts, and expenses without forcing asset sales. When you uncover gaps, recommend appropriate life insurance coverage. 

Your role as a financial advisor throughout the estate planning lifecycle

Estate planning is continuous, not a single transaction. As a financial advisor, you’re well positioned to guide clients through each stage, providing financial expertise that complements their attorney’s legal work.

• Assess the current situation. Review existing estate documents alongside the client’s complete financial picture. Identify gaps between their stated goals and their current plan. Understand their family dynamics, business interests, and charitable intentions. 
• Coordinate with estate attorneys. Connect clients with qualified estate attorneys if they aren’t already working with one. Provide the attorney with relevant financial information and context, and participate in planning meetings to ensure everyone understands the financial implications of legal structures. 
• Align assets with the estate strategy. Map every asset to the estate plan. Ensure retirement accounts, investment portfolios, real estate, business interests, and personal property are positioned to achieve the client’s goals. Recommend structural changes that improve tax efficiency or simplify administration. Coordinate with the attorney on proper titling and ownership structures.
• Monitor and update the plan regularly. Schedule annual reviews at minimum, with additional check-ins after major life events. Track changes in tax laws and estate planning regulations. Update financial projections as the client’s situation evolves. Prompt legal document updates when needed, working with the attorney to revise plans.
• Support estate administration. When a client passes, help executors and trustees understand the financial aspects of estate administration and manage investment accounts during the settlement period.  

Adding estate planning value to your client relationships

Estate planning protects what your clients have built and ensures their values endure beyond their lifetime. Your role combines financial expertise with strategic coordination, guiding clients through complexities they can’t navigate alone.

Start these conversations with your clients today. Review their current estate plans, identify gaps, and create a roadmap for comprehensive planning that protects their legacy.

Vanilla, the leading estate planning platform for financial advisory firms, helps you deliver highly personalized estate planning guidance for every client across the wealth spectrum. To learn more, download our comprehensive guide to estate planning for financial advisors, or schedule a demo of our platform.

The information provided here does not constitute legal, financial, or tax advice. It is provided for general informational purposes only. This information may not be updated or reflect changes in law. Please consult with an estate attorney, financial advisor, or tax professional who can advise as to your particular situation.