The “Other Side” of Estate Planning: Advisors Roles in Estate and Trust Administration

This session is intended to highlight the many roles a fiduciary advisor can have in an Estate or Trust administration matter, supporting attorneys and other professionals to facilitate these often complex processes for the beneficiaries of Trusts & Wills.

While financial advisors often are key players in their own client’s estate planning process, and may be asked to be involved in the post-death administration process, there are many Trust and Estate administration matters where there is no financial advisor actively involved, or at least one who does not have a vested interest in a particular outcome.

This session will show participants the value they can bring to an administration matter as a fee-only fiduciary in several different contexts. The first is that the advisor can provide an independent assessment to the clients and their attorneys and other professionals. For example, often the deceased individual has a longstanding relationship with a particular financial services company and that company generally would like to keep the assets in place whether or not that is in the best interests of the beneficiaries or not. The path of least resistance for the beneficiaries may be to keep their inherited assets at that firm, but an independent assessment by a fiduciary advisor who does not sell products and, in this instance, is acting in a transactional manner on an hourly or project fee basis, may offer them better alternatives. As noted, the ideal role for the advisor in these administration matters is as a subject matter expert being compensated for their time and expertise and not seeking to take over the financial advisor role for the beneficiaries.

An additional role for the advisor in these matters is as the financial and tax consultant to the attorney on issues relating to establishment of inherited IRAs, in-kind distributions of assets, transfers between custodians, and similar areas where the advisor offers tremendous value to the administration process. An advisor can also support the preparation and filing of claims for benefits such as life insurance or pension payments. In some cases the attorney may rely on the financial advisor to assist with the preparation of Estate inventories or accountings, particularly with respect to investment assets.

One other area where the advisor can offer significant value to the administration process is in helping the attorney and beneficiaries with the “treasure hunt” for assets and coordination with financial institutions. The financial advisor has a unique perspective in this part of the administration process due to their experience with interpreting tax returns and other resources to identify assets and using their knowledge of financial services companies to more effectively work with them to identify and retitle assets.

This session will provide guidance to advisors on how to present their value proposition to Estate and Trust attorneys in their area for the challenges they face in the post-death administration process. Advisors who already work closely with estate planning attorneys will now be able to demonstrate the additional support they can provide to the attorney and/or the beneficiaries in an independent and fiduciary manner.

For those advisors who do not yet work closely with estate planning attorneys it will provide a framework for showing their value in both the planning and administration process, with the “front-loaded” support likely reducing the need for significant post-death work for the parties which is the best outcome for the family members.

3 Learning Objectives:

Learning Objectives: After attendees leave this session, they will be able to:

• Have a strategy to present to local estate planning attorneys on the value the advisor can bring to them for both the planning and administration aspects of their client work.
• Demonstrate the importance of having a fiduciary advisor providing an independent assessment to the attorney and beneficiaries instead of the more typical interested party existing financial services firm.
• Highlight the benefit to the attorney and the clients of having the financial advisor on the team of professionals and, in many cases, being the coordinator of that team due to the broad knowledge and experience the advisor brings to the process.