Protecting the Integrity of Your Clients’ Estate Plans
An estate plan isn’t complete when the documents are signed. It’s complete when every financial decision continues to support the intent of those documents throughout a client’s lifetime.
A Shared Commitment to Your Clients
For more than 38 years, I have had the privilege of helping families navigate retirement, the loss of a spouse, business transitions, inheritance, tax planning, and the countless financial decisions that accompany life's major changes.
Most estate plans do not fail because the documents were drafted incorrectly. They fail because the financial lives surrounding those documents continue to evolve.
Accounts move. Beneficiaries are never updated. Trust remains unfunded. Assets are titled incorrectly. Retirement accounts pass outside the estate plan. Tax laws change. Families change.
Our role begins where many estate plans end, helping clients implement, maintain, and periodically review the financial components of their estate plan while collaborating closely with their attorney and CPA.
How We Support Your Clients
- Review beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, annuities, and life insurance
- Verify account ownership and titling
- Confirm TOD/POD registrations
- Coordinate trust funding where appropriate
- Review registrations after marriages, deaths, divorces, births, and family changes
- Roth conversion analysis and lifetime tax planning
- Required Minimum Distribution and Qualified Charitable Distribution strategies
- Annual beneficiary reviews and Asset Map updates
- Retirement income, long-term care, and survivor planning
- Coordination with the client's CPA and attorney
The Intentional Ark
Our planning philosophy is called the Intentional Ark because we believe some things are simply too important to leave unprotected. We help ensure investments, taxes, retirement income, insurance, and estate planning continue working together as life evolves.
Our Commitment to Professional Collaboration
- Respect and reinforce your legal recommendations.
- Collaborate rather than compete.
- Communicate proactively when financial decisions may affect the estate plan.
- Encourage clients to return to you whenever legal updates are appropriate.
- Help preserve the integrity of the planning you created.
10 Estate Planning Mistakes We Help Clients Avoid
These are common implementation issues we encounter after estate planning documents have been signed. Our objective is to identify them early and coordinate with the client's attorney before they become larger legal, tax, or family issues.
1. Outdated Beneficiary Designations
Accounts often still name former spouses, deceased individuals, or outdated beneficiaries.
2. Per Stirpes vs. Per Capita Errors
Beneficiary designations may not match the attorney's intended distribution language.
3. Unfunded Revocable Trusts
Trusts are signed but assets are never retitled.
4. TOD/POD Conflicts
Bank accounts pass outside the intended estate plan.
5. IRA Beneficiary Issues
Retirement accounts are inconsistent with overall estate objectives.
6. Missing Contingent Beneficiaries
Creates unnecessary complications if a primary beneficiary predeceases the owner.
7. Incorrect Account Titling
Joint, individual, trust, and entity ownership may no longer match the plan.
8. Tax Planning Missed
RMDs, Roth conversions, and QCD opportunities may conflict with estate goals if not coordinated.
9. Family Changes
Births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and incapacity often require updates.
10. No Ongoing Review
An estate plan should evolve as life changes.
Our Philosophy
We believe estate planning is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process of stewardship. By working together with attorneys and CPAs, we help families maintain the integrity of their planning through every stage of life.
