How Advisors Can Be More Effective at Estate Planning: 2025 Complete Guide with Best Practices, Examples, and Tips

At risk of stating the obvious, you already so some semblance of estate planning for clients ('tis a part of the CFP exam, after all). But, how do you become more effective at estate planning?

This tactical guide will teach you how to be more effective at estate planning from knowing when to bring it up with clients to increasing your estate plan completion rate. Everything in this guide is sourced directly from advisors who turned estate planning into a core, revenue generating practice area.

Estate Planning Effectiveness Focus Areas

As an advisor, you've probably felt like you're a Jack of All Trades, Master of None. Fortunately, you're not alone!

Here are the effectiveness areas advisors should focus on to improve: when to bring up estate planning with clients, how to bring up the topic with clients, and how to increase your estate plan completion rate.

• When to bring up estate planning with clients.
• How to bring up estate planning with clients.
• Estate plan completion rate.

When's the Best Time to Bring Up Estate Planning with Clients?

Timing is indeed everything, especially when it comes to the timing of when you bring up estate planning with clients.

Here are the best times (read: life events) to bring up the topic of estate planning with clients, according to the advisors Encore works with and behavioral finance experts:

• Review/update meetings: Ask to review the beneficiaries on all your clients' accounts at every review/update meeting. Clients will be surprised to find who's listed despite not updating their bennies for over a year. According to Eric Negron of Forefront Advisory, this is a great time to ask clients because they're already in the right mindset of reviewing their entire financial plans with you.
• Birth / Adoption: Very easy, must-do time for bringing up estate planning! Especially if your clients want to specify their forthcoming kids/grandkids as beneficiaries, and those kids/grandkids need guardians listed.
• Family member with special needs: Similar to if your clients are expecting new children and or grandchildren! An absolute "must bring up estate planning now" moment.
• Children turn 18 / 529 distribution meetings: Your clients can't act on their 18+ yo children's behalf without powers documents like a power of attorney (POA) and HIPAA release in place, so use this as a great teachable moment to educate your clients, and hammer home to your next-gen clients the importance of having an estate plan in place, and facilitating a Encore powers plan for each of their now-adult children.
• Children going to college: Similar to how children turning 18 is a compelling moment, this is another great time to emphasize the importance of having powers documents in place for college-bound children!
• First job: You want to help make sure your clients have health care POA in place with their insurance provider, and that all of the retirement accounts are titled properly with the needed beneficiaries designated.
• Job change: See "First job" above.
• Getting married: One of the best gifts you can give soon-to-be married clients is helping them get an estate plan in place ensure their assets are protected! This is also a great forcing function moment for both partners to get on the same page and know where all the proverbial bodies are buried.
• Getting divorced: While it's much easier to bring up estate planning when clients are getting married, you should still bring up estate planning if they're about to divorce given that their assets about to be legally separated.
• Buying a home: You especially want to make sure the house is titled into their trust (assuming your clients already have a trust). You can request a property deed transfer into a trust using EncorEstate Plans's deed filing service.
• Selling a home: Similar to buying a home, you'll want to make sure their estate plans are updated when this happens.
• Receiving a windfall: Definitely one of the best times for both you and your clients to talk estate planning (and tax and retirement planning, too). Your clients will need your help figuring out how best to allocate that windfall, especially if they're philanthropic.
• Moving to a new state: Estate plans are generally recognized by all other states in the US, but there are state-specific nuances that can impact how your clients, especially with regard to property ownership. The EncorEstate Plans team of estate planners and paralegals will make sure to give both you and your clients a heads up on the considerations, and connect you with an estate planning attorney to further answer questions if you need.
• Vacation / traveling (especially international travel): Check a few weeks before your clients leave given that it might take some time to properly execute all estate documents and the retitled property deed (needed to properly fund living trusts). According to Amy Irvine, CFP®, EA, MPAS®, CCFC, CDFA®, CFT™ of Rooted Planning Group, asking clients right before they go on vacation might seem counterintuitive, but it actually brings them a lot of peace of mind and relief.
• Right after the holidays: According to Eric Negron, bringing up estate planning right after major holiday get-togethers like Thanksgiving is great timing given that extended family members get together to celebrate and will prompt thinking around legacy and estate planning.
• Changes to family dynamics (e.g., falling out with parents): A lot can happen in a day (let alone a month), so when adult children have a falling out with their parents, and those children are beneficiaries of their parents' trust, be prepared to bring up the need to update their estate plans.
• Health changes / Key family member becomes disabled: It's tough to bring up estate planning during a trying time, but you absolutely should, especially to make sure your clients' disability insurance is ready to go and that their POA agent is empowered to take action on their behalf. To prepare in advance, you'll want to ensure your clients' powers documents (like the springing POA documents Encore offers) are in place and ready to "spring" into action.
• Chronic health problems crop up in family (client, their spouse, or children): Another good reason to ensure your clients have, at the very least, power of attorney (POA) and HIPAA release documents signed and up-to-date. Powers documents are the foundation of every estate plan, and can "spring" into action in the event your client's chronic health issues take a sudden turn for the worse.
• Inheritance: At risk of stating the obvious, this is one of those must-bring up estate planning life moments!
• Starting a business: You'll want to make sure your clients' businesses avoid probate from the moment they start the business formation process. EncorEstate Plans's Support Team can help file a business assignment, a document that can be shown to any business partners or financial institutions that the business interest is an asset of your client's trust.
• Buying a business: Similar to starting a business, you'll want to make sure your clients' new business acquisitions are part of their trust (Encore can help with that).
• Selling a business: Lastly, if your clients are selling a business, you'll want to make sure that is reflected in their estate plans.
• Charitable giving: Clients who are philanthropically minded will need your guidance across estate, tax, and retirement planning! You can leverage estate modeling software for the more complex client cases.
• Significant change to financial situation: Depending on the nature of the change itself (good or bad), clients are much better off discussing their situation with you in-depth to ensure everything is taken into account across their entire financial plans.
• Tax law changes (state and federal), in addition to tax planning and strategy meetings: Tax law changes are always a good time for education + discussion around how clients' estates will be impacted.
• Retirement planning: Initial retirement planning discussions should always include discussions about estate planning, especially with regard to double-checking accounts are titled correctly and that trustees, executors, and beneficiaries are updated if needed.
• Death of a loved one: This is a tricky balancing act given the timing and nature of the situation, but a relative passing away serves as a reminder to your clients to make sure their estate plans are executed and funded.

How To Bring Up Estate Planning with Clients

Through Open- and Closed-ended Questions via Quantitative Data

Now that you've expanded your timing / prompting arsenal, you can pair it with both your gut feel on how to bring up estate planning and data from Jump AI's 245,000 meetings.

According to Jump's data, asking the right, strategic questions in estate planning conversations = max success in bringing up estate planning with clients. More specifically, how advisors use both open- and closed-ended questions affects estate planning conversation success rates:

"Open-ended questions allow the advisor to glean important information about the client’s desires, fears and family nuances, while closed-ended questions aid in getting buy-in to move forward.

Actionable Takeaways

Use a specific mix of questions:

• 3 closed-ended questions.

• 1–2 open-ended questions.

This combination yielded a 65.1% client commitment rate to wealth transfer recommendations. In contrast, overloading the conversation with too many or overly broad questions led to decision fatigue and lower follow-through. Estate planning can be overwhelming to clients."

Now, like all good research studies, Jump's data confirms what you've known all along. But, it's good to see your gut feeling quantified with concrete data!

Through the Psychology of Estate Planning via Qualitative Data

To successfully bring up estate planning with clients, you must first understand the psychology of estate planning procrastination. Understanding why clients procrastinate on estate planning involves examining their emotional and psychological barriers, including the inherent discomfort associated with discussing mortality and incapacity.

Derek Hagen, who's the only known practicing CFA and Certified Financial Therapist, emphasizes the contagious nature of advisors' attitudes towards estate planning:

Actionable Takeaways

• Normalize the Discussion: Frame estate planning conversations as a routine aspect of responsible financial management rather than an isolated, daunting event.
• Reflect Personal Confidence: Advisors should address their own estate planning needs proactively to authentically guide clients through the process.
• Be Mindful of Emotional Barriers: Recognize and validate the emotional weight of estate planning conversations, providing empathy and understanding to clients.

Clients often delay because estate planning feels overwhelming and emotionally heavy. By confronting our own procrastination as advisors, we become better equipped to guide our clients.

And to effectively address these barriers, advisors must lead with genuine positivity, curiosity, and understanding, actively engaging in supportive dialogues that demystify the process.

Download: Proven Estate Planning Conversation Starters from Advisors

How To Increase Estate Plan Completion Rates (Daniel Kopp's Process)

Measure Your Estate Plan Implementation Rate and Set a Goal for Improving It

Start measuring this metric now if you haven't done so already (it might be low, but after all, what isn't measured cannot be improved).

As a point of reference, Daniel had a 42% estate plan implementation rate when he first brought estate planning into his firm (i.e., he went the traditional route of referring clients to estate attorneys). From what we've heard from the advisors we work with, this rate is on par with what they've seen with their clients.

After refining his process, Daniel improved his estate planning implementation rate from 42% to 85%!

A good starting point for calculating your estate plan implementation rate is to look at:

• The number of successfully funded estate plans divided by,
• All of the clients whom you referred estate planning out to in the last 12 months.

Create Your Process (Based On What's Working Well with Other Advisors)

Now that you have your estate plan implementation rate in mind, and determined the new rate you'd like to hit, it's time to map out how you'll get there.

To do this, Daniel recommends coming up with a process and workflow.

Here's the exact process Daniel uses:

1. Make sure you educate yourself on UPL and emphasizing general education, not specific advice (note: Encore offers these training resources in both the platform + knowledge base).
2. Ask your clients, “Do you have an estate plan? Are you satisfied with it? Do we need to make an update?”
3. Leverage client education resources to build out custom slide decks and PDFs (get these free client-facing plan questionnaires, email templates, and marketing resources).
4. Have clients sign a two-page extra update acknowledging: 
   ✅ You’re not an attorney.
   ✅ You’re not able to provide legal advice.
   ✅ Info spelling out what services they’ll be receiving as part of their estate plan.
   ✅ Pricing – you can:
   
   • Pay for the cost of creating an estate plan (like Daniel).
   • Pass the cost on to clients.
   • Pass the cost on + layer on the cost of your time.

This process has been well-received by Daniel’s clients – he saw his estate plan implementation rate go from 42% to 85% (a 102% improvement!)

The Bottom Line

As the trusted advisor, you've got estate planning down (even if you feel like you don't)! Your clients know you and trust you, and refreshing yourself on when are the best times to bring up the topic of estate planning and how to bring up estate planning will go a long way towards helping you channel your subject matter expertise.

And with your help facilitating those estate documents, your clients will have high quality estate documents and funded trusts in no time – ensuring their estate plans are complete and accurate!

Looking for the Best Estate Planning Software for Advisors?

Get started with EncorEstate Plans today. If your clients need property deeds re-titled to their trusts, just reach out and we will file it for them (our white glove deed filing service is in-house).