Category: Estate Planning

Sarah D. McDaniel, CFA

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Jul 01, 2026

Holiday gatherings bring the whole family together; the same people who need to align on estate plans, heirlooms, and generational transfers. Here's how to show up as an invaluable resource before, during, and after. When families gather, decisions get made It's no coincidence that some of the most meaningful estate planning conversations happen around a kitchen table or on a porch in July. Given families informally use holiday get-togethers to have important conversations, advisors who ask about family gatherings and traditions do more than make small talk, they become confidants and indirectly part of the family conversation. Advisors learn who...

Vanilla

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Jun 25, 2026

Estate planning is built on a foundation of sensitive conversations and personal information: beneficiary designations, trust structures, asset distributions, family dynamics, and tax strategies. For RIA firms evaluating estate planning software, security belongs at the center of the decision-making process. As clients increasingly demand transparency into how their data is being used and managed, and regulators step up scrutiny on technology infrastructure, RIAs need to partner with vendors that understand the high stakes of data security. The nuances of estate planning data All financial data is sensitive, and estate planning data is no exception. A client’s estate plan is tied...

Laura Jogani

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Jun 11, 2026

"This could take an hour and I'd still be thrilled." That's what a trust officer at a top trust company said to me while we were running a trust document review together in Vanilla. The AI had taken a little longer than usual — maybe seven minutes instead of five. She wasn't bothered because she knew what the alternative was. Five hours. One document. Every time. That's the reality of trust document reviews today at most trust companies. A new account comes in, or an annual review is due, and a trust officer sits down with a dense, 80-page document...

Laura Jogani

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Jun 04, 2026

Early in my career at JP Morgan, I needed information about a specific trust. Details about distribution standards, successor trustees, provisions that mattered for a client situation we were navigating. The trust officer who knew that account inside and out was on vacation. Two weeks out. We waited. That moment stuck with me, not because it was a crisis, but because it was so ordinary. It happened all the time, at one of the largest, most sophisticated financial institutions in the world. The information existed. It just lived in a person, not a system. And when that person wasn't there,...

Sarah D. McDaniel, CFA

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Jun 02, 2026

Memorial Day is behind us, school's out and our clients are booking flights, loading up the car, and mentally shifting into summer mode. That's exactly why this is your opening. When people travel, something shifts in how they think about the unexpected — what happens if a flight goes sideways, if there's a medical emergency, if something unforeseen leaves their family trying to figure out who to call and what to do. That quiet anxiety doesn't require a crisis or a deadline to feel real. It’s already there. And your clients are in that mindset right now. They're updating emergency...

Vanilla

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May 28, 2026

Estate planning is one of the most valuable services financial advisors can offer, but it’s also one of the most difficult to make relevant and tangible during a client meeting.  For many families across the wealth spectrum, estate documents already exist, created by their attorneys. But showing clients what those plans mean in the context of their full financial picture is challenging, and doing so in a way that’s simple, actionable, and engaging is even harder.  Estate planning flowcharts do the heavy lifting, surfacing relevant data from dense legal documents and helping clients immediately understand the impact of the information...

Jessica Lantz

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May 27, 2026

Estate planning conversations don't always start with a trust structure. Sometimes they start with a client who wants to give — to a cause they care about or to an institution that shaped who they are. What makes these conversations worth having carefully is that charitable intent and estate planning goals don't have to live in separate lanes. When structured thoughtfully, a charitable strategy can honor a client's values while doing meaningful work on their estate at the same time. That integration is increasingly where advisors are finding differentiation. Clients with appreciated assets, concentrated positions, or taxable estates are asking...

Vanilla

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May 18, 2026

A financial advisor's book spans the full range of client complexity — from a household getting their first will to a UHNW family managing a multi-generational wealth transfer. Vanilla was built to handle all of it. More than 21,000 estates processed, $250 billion in assets modeled. Here's what that looks like in practice. Mass affluent clients: delivering good plans at scale For emerging wealth clients, the problem most advisors face isn't what to do — it's how to do it consistently across a large number of relationships without the process falling apart. Vanilla's Document Builder™ gives clients the tools to...

Vanilla

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May 12, 2026

As demand for estate planning increases, adoption of AI estate planning software is accelerating. Last year, Kitces Research projected that by 2026, nearly half of all advisors will employ technology to support estate planning.  Firms leading the charge are positioning themselves to deliver a differentiated level of comprehensive planning with depth and consistency across their entire book of business. Advisors who build estate planning into their core service offering, supported by AI software that enables scale, can establish deeper relationships with both current and next-gen clients while setting themselves apart from firms focused exclusively on investment management and retirement financial...