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Aligning Your Estate and Financial Plans

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“Aligning Your Estate and Financial Plans” by Attorney Jon Gasior (Audio)

When you meet with an estate planning attorney, the conversation will likely revolve around your assets and your goals for the future. Typically, clients have a few major concerns such as who will manage their affairs if they are unable, who will inherit when they pass away, tax avoidance strategies, and long term care planning strategies. All of these concerns and goals create a bigger picture and that is how they will leave a legacy.  

As attorneys, when we have these conversations with clients, we are not diving into the asset alignment with these goals. We just need to know what assets exist and how they may fit into the plan from a legal perspective of titling, taxes and transfers.

However, in order to do comprehensive and thorough estate planning, it is a necessity to review the assets at all levels, and this includes reviewing the alignment and investments. This is where a financial advisor is helpful in the overall estate planning process.

A financial advisor can complement the estate plan by understanding the long term goals of the client and make recommendations, or change investment strategy to further those goals. These two processes are not as effective in a silo as they are working seamlessly together.

For example, a client may tell their estate planning attorney their goal is provide a multi-generational legacy for children and grandchildren. They may then tell their advisor because of their age they are risk averse and do not want to invest in risky investments.

It is important to wed these two concepts. The attorney should work on the estate plan to get closer to achieving the goal of multi-generational wealth transfer, while the advisor needs to do a deep dive at the risk profile, time horizon, and underlying performance of the investments to determine short term volatility while projecting long term growth for generations.

Often these two trusted advisors are operating in silos and therefore not coordinating at a high level to further protect the client through their estate and financial plan.

It is important that when you set up your estate plan, you are aligning your financial plan with that estate plan.  At Sinclair Prosser Gasior, we can work with your financial advisor to ensure all your goals are aligned.

Jon J. Gasior, Estate Planning Attorney
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About Jon J. Gasior, Estate Planning Attorney

His personal experience with family and the problems that resulted from their failure to create an estate plan resulted in his desire to learn more about this area of the law. From his work in the Elder Law Clinic, he further realized the need to plan not only for death, but also for incapacity during their lifetime. About the Author !