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How to Start Offering Estate Planning at Your RIA: 2025 Complete Guide, Tips, and Examples from 13+ Financial Advisors

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Key Takeaways

  • Advisors and financial planners can and should do comprehensive estate planning from facilitating estate document creation to funding, especially since they look at legal documents all day.

  • Key benefits of adding estate planning to your advisory firm include becoming the one-stop shop for all things financial planning for your clients, reinforcing your "stickiness" and trust in clients’ eyes, and bringing in more assets and information under management (AUM and IUM, respectively).
  • Financial advisors can facilitate estate document creation and trust funding through an estate planning platform like EncorEstate Plans (they don't need to practice law to begin with). It’s a common misconception that only attorneys can help clients prepare their estate plans. Advisors often leave money on the table by referring clients to local attorneys for estate planning.
  • According to Business Insider[*], financial advisors are needed for estate planning now more than ever given the estate attorney shortage. Estate attorneys have been burning out and retiring in droves thanks to estate planning demand skyrocketing during COVID.

In this article:

Should Advisors Work with Estate Planning Attorneys or Software?

Working with estate planning attorneys or leveraging estate planning software for advisors is fine so long as your clients' wishes and estate plans are executed and funded properly.

Note: It’s a common misconception that only attorneys can help clients prepare their estate plans. The difference between you and an attorney is that you are not drafting the documents or telling the client whether they need a will-based or trust-based estate plan.

Option #1: Work with Estate Planning Attorney

This the most common way for advisors to implement estate planning services at their firm. Working with attorney partners in your area can be very fruitful for all parties involved (e.g., two-way referral street, better tandem service for mutual clients).

But, like everything in life, it depends on finding the right, reliable partner who meets both your needs and your clients' needs.

Option #2: Work with Estate Planning Software for Advisors

In the last five years or so, estate planning platforms like Wealth.com, Vanilla, and EncorEstate Plans have given advisors the ability to facilitate estate plan execution from estate document prep to trust funding.

Platforms like Wealth.com and Vanilla excel at estate document creation and estate analysis, but still have advisors go the traditional route of working with estate attorneys to fund trusts (which according to a Wealth.com customer on Reddit, "...defeats the purpose of using the platform."). Both platforms also offer partner attorney networks if advisors and their clients need more in-depth estate planning advice and review.

If you prefer a platform that has fully integrated execution of your clients' estate plans, look no further to EncorEstate Plans: the only truly comprehensive estate planning platform that offers integrated estate document prep, estate plan funding, and attorney review.

Related: Compare Wealth.com vs. EncorEstate Plans vs. Vanilla

 

More Benefits of Adding Estate Planning to Your Firm According to Advisors and Estate Planners

You can expect to see these additional benefits from adding estate planning to your advisory firm (as if you needed more convincing 😉):
  • Better protection of clients’ hard-earned assets (save them from fees and reduce likelihood of probate process).
    • According to Robin Darden (Estate Planner at EncorEstate Plans): “If your clients don’t have a plan, then the state will have a plan for them."
  • An estate plan referral process: turn one estate plan into three like Yohance Harrison has done time and time again
    • You become “more sticky” and trusted in clients’ eyes according to Scott Leonard of Navigoe, Adam Sommers of Sommers Financial Management, and David Littlejohn of Littlejohn Financial Services.

 

Easy Ways to Get Started with Estate Planning Without Extra Overhead and Processes

These tried-and-tested ways will get you started with estate planning faster than you create an EncorEstate Plans account:

  • 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.
  • Ask your clients if their POA and HIPAA release documents are up-to-date: powers documents are core to any and all estate plans, so asking your clients about this gives you a great layup to a broader estate plan discussion with them, especially if they've been procrastinating.
  • Turn 529 distribution request meetings into a powers documents and estate plan discussion: asking clients with kids who are in college, "Does your son/daughter have a POA and HIPAA release in place?" is a great way to take care of future clients AND hammer home the importance of well-prepared estate plans.
    • Even if your clients aren't ready to have an estate plan discussion, asking them about POA and HIPAA documents gets them thinking in the right direction and acting on protecting their adult children.
  • Host quarterly in-person document check and execution meetings: once a quarter, invite all of your prospects and customers to your office to check that all of their estate documents are actually signed and notarized! Then, take them out to dinner afterward to celebrate.

How To Start an Estate Planning Practice Without Practicing Law

You’re already at the center of your clients’ finances, so why not bring all of it together into a revocable living trust that you help them create and fund?

According to 13 advisors EncorEstate Plans interviewed, here are the easiest and most painless ways to start up your estate planning practice:

Related: 3 Steps to Avoid Unauthorized Practice of Law + Examples

Step 1A: Consult Your Compliance Team First

According to Eric Negron of ForeFront Wealth Partners, you should “consult your compliance team first” (unless you like wearing orange jumpsuits and white slip-ons everyday).

Negron also recommends having estate planning built into your disclosure documents with both the SEC and the states your clients are in. “It’s super simple language," he says. "It’s not hard to put this [disclosure] language in there.”

 

Step 1B: Look at Where Else You Can Expand Your Services

In clients’ eyes, estate planning is an expansion of your services and capabilities they’re already enjoying.

Even the act of considering adding estate planning is a good forcing function to stop and think about how to improve and diversify your offerings and services.

You could also think about client segments that are under-served, like Amy Irvine of Rooted Planning Group (who serves busy women and their families) or Daniel Kopp of Wise Stewardship Financial Planning (who serves young widows and widowers, and service members and their families).

PRO TIP: Ask your clients for ideas and suggestions on how you can better serve them.

 
Step 2: Own the Estate Planning Process (Stop Referring It Out)

You’re already adding tons of value to your clients (it’s why they keep coming back). But when it comes to estate planning, clients would rather cheesegrate their face than get their documents drafted.

And why continue pursuing a one-sided relationship with an estate attorney whom you refer clients to, only to never hear back from either of them about the estate plan or next steps? Any local attorney worth their salt would send your clients back to you to complete the funding.

If you already have the core pieces in place, why leave all of this up to chance?

After referring this line of business out for about 11 years (and leaving money on the table), Tushar Kumar of Twin Peaks Advisors decided to own the estate planning process from start to finish:

“For the better part of 11 years of my career, I was constantly referring that business to someone else and not being able to own that process. More often than not, [the estate plans] didn't get to the finish line.”

“I wanted to have greater control over a very basic process. In our first year, we did 54 plans: just getting very basic trusts set up [with] mostly clients that we had we had already been in business with for over a decade.”

PRO TIP: The best way to create your process for estate planning is to ask other advisors how they did it.

Related: Advisors Share Their Estate Planning Tips and Practices

 

Step 3: Figure Out Your Service Model, then Operational Execution

Your estate planning service model probably won’t be too different from the rest of your planning offerings.

Here are a few things to consider as part of your service model:

  • Will you hire staff (e.g., estate planner, attorney) or adopt software to handle estate planning?
    • If hiring staff: account for candidate search + hiring time, in addition to ramp up time.
    • If adopting a tool: account for learning curve + staff training time.
  • Do you have checklists and follow-up processes for each phase of the estate planning process, especially for post-document creation and funding?
  • Do you have client-facing resources like templatized answers and FAQs that you can send clients quickly?
If you need some checklists to get started, Encore has resources for implementing estate planning Into your practice.

Related: How to Provide General Legal Information to Your Clients

 

Step 4: Leverage Estate Planning Software

With your drive to create an estate planning practice in full effect, consider your team’s capacity to execute your vision.

Unless their firms are over capacity, many advisors leverage software like Encore to help them fulfill their clients’ estate planning needs. They get up and running quickly with less than 30 minutes of required training.

Another route firms pursue is hiring a dedicated estate planner or estate attorney to handle this new line of business. Firms looking to further grow their firms tend to hire a planner or attorney who has an existing book of business, but eventually adopt tools to help them streamline their estate planning process.

When to Use Estate Planning Software for Advisors

Financial advisors typically consider adopting software to:

  • Streamline their team’s estate planning workflows.
  • Gain access to expert guidance. (not all software provides this)
  • Help most clients fulfill their need to complete a straightforward plan.
  • Extend their firm’s capabilities in servicing clients.
  • Templatize estate planning documents and provide parts of the overall template for different clients’ needs (like an attorney does).

When it comes to evaluating tools, consider using Eric Negron's evaluation criteria:

“I chose Encore for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it had nothing to do with technology.

It had to do with culture. For us, it was:

- Who are the people that are leading the organization?
- What sort of character, what sort of heart do they have?
- What are their core values?
- What are they about?"

David Littlejohn of Littlejohn Financial Services also echoes Negron’s sentiment:

“I was surprised how easy you guys made it. There's such a great knowledge base where you can go in and customer service at Encore is fantastic. I drop a text in and I get answers very quickly.”

Related: Resources for Implementing Estate Planning Into Your Practice

 

Step 5: Nail Down Your Process

You could come up with a process that works for you.

Or, you could adopt the following process from the advisors and estate planners below (who started their estate planning practices from scratch and have generously shared their internal processes).

 
1. Announce your estate planning capabilities to clients.

For current clients, explain how you’re now able to help them finalize their estate docs.

PRO TIP: Send an email to clients without estate planning docs with the subject line “We need you to update your client profile.” That subject line has been very effective in Katie Noles’s (of Advisors EP) experience.

Noles also recommends asking clients whose estate plan is complete, “May we see your current estate plan?” Doing so helps you check:

  • If the plan is outdated.
  • If the beneficiaries differ.
  • If the plan needs updates to reflect clients' current wishes.

You’ll fulfill your fiduciary duty by double-checking clients’ plans and ultimately help clients flag things that might be missing or incorrect.

For new clients, it’s a great way to show new clients how you and your firm work. They want to know the people behind the proverbial curtain.

Here are some great announcement examples from advisors on LinkedIn:

 
2. Explain how you charge for the work you do.

Explaining the price breakdowns helps a lot, especially when clients are comparison shopping.

For example, advisors like Joel Top of Plan Wiser Financial and Eric Bishoff of Bishoff Financial Group charge clients the same amount it costs to create a trust-based estate plan in Encore ($625).

 
3. Explain what your firm will do from start to finish.

Showing what’s under the proverbial hood goes a long way in clients’ eyes, especially with helping them demystify everything.

PRO TIP: Consider adding a money-back guarantee where you’ll refund the money if clients feel like they got no value from how your firm works + communicates the data. Bishoff has seen great success with this offer, especially for helping de-risk the engagement in clients’ eyes.

ANOTHER PRO TIP: Lead with estate planning to uncover wallet share, then bring in new assets under management over time as you strengthen your relationship with clients.

Both Eric Bishoff and Katie Noles recommend this approach, with Noles adding, “Onboarding estate plans first with clients allow you to do all [of the financial planning] at once since you already have all of your clients’ information. There’s no backtracking to correct beneficiary designations and account ownership, either.”

Eric Negron sums it up nicely:

"Money is love."

“When you do estate planning, you know who’s in the family, who’s important, who’s benefiting from financial assets, and who people love that they want to make sure are taken care of if something happens to them.”

 

Step 6: Drink Your Own Champagne aka Walk In Your Clients’ Shoes

Run through your entire estate planning process from start to finish to see what it’s really like for clients.

For example, before they fully rolled out Encore, all the advisors we interviewed for The Advisors' Guide to Estate Planning podcast created their own estate plans in Encore to get a feel for the document creation process.

Doing all of this helps you spot potential hiccups and blindspots in your estate planning delivery, and helps you find gaps in the pre-, during, and post-plan phases (e.g., # of follow-ups re: funding you should end after docs are notarized).

 

What Tools Do You Need for Estate Planning?

At the most basic level, you need:

  1. An integrated estate planning platform that ensures high caliber estate documents and trust funding
  2. A place to connect all your clients’ assets.
  3. A tool that has guided workflows and estate attorneys on staff who can answer all of your questions.
  4. Someone on your team to help clients execute funding instructions.

 

Encore Can Help With Your Estate Planning Practice

Encore can help when you’re building out your estate planning practice, but we can also augment your advisor tech stack.

We have attorney-quality estate documents at a fraction of the cost that you can use any time for clients, from trust-based estate plans to property deed recordings – it’s all pay as you go (no monthly or annual fees).

And, our industry-leading support team has your back at all times at no extra cost: Encore is your back-office estate planning team.

Book a deep-dive conversation with Encore.