Connecting the Dots on Your Estate Plan

At Mercer Advisors, your wealth advisor can work in tandem with many other in-house professionals to support your particular needs. It all starts with a conversation about your deepest dreams, goals, and desires. Your advisor then creates a framework for how to reach these goals, and it’s likely that estate planning is a crucial part of that framework.

Below, we’ve highlighted how estate planning is an integral component of your overall wealth planning, helping to protect your legacy.

Protecting your estate

Why is estate planning so important? Estate planning has a host of benefits for you and your family, including tax efficiency, asset protection, and healthcare and incapacity planning. It’s a crucial part of your overall financial plan while its value extends well beyond your lifetime. An estate plan ensures that your assets go where you want them to go after you’re gone. It can guard your estate from probate, a costly and public court process that can drag on for months (or even years) and can even slow down (or prevent) the distribution of assets. Comprehensive estate planning can also help you minimize gift and estate taxes through lifetime planning. Notably, documents in your estate plan can appoint individuals to act on your behalf if you are indisposed due to mental or physical incapacity, and they can guide your loved ones in decision-making about your health.

The Mercer Advisors’ estate planning experience

1. Questionnaire. Once you and your advisor have established the need for an estate plan, you will fill out a questionnaire specifying your assets and beneficiaries. You’ll also designate fiduciaries in important roles, such as your estate’s executor or trustee.
2. Plan design. Next, you will meet with an attorney to design to your estate plan. Your attorney will answer any questions you may have and tailor the plan to your specific circumstances. An assistant will also usher you through the estate planning experience, assisting your attorney to ensure all your questions are answered and your needs are met.
3. Plan review. Once a draft of your estate plan is complete, you will have the opportunity to review the documents. You will then meet with your attorney to review the draft, make any final adjustments or changes, and ask any outstanding questions.
4. Completion. The documents comprising your completed estate plan are then mailed to you for your signature.

The Mercer Advisors difference

The estate planning approach is different at Mercer Advisors than at many other wealth management or legal firms. Mercer Advisors offers clients estate plan document preparation services through an agreement with a law firm. Estate planning strategists employed by Mercer Advisors are also counsel with this separate law firm. Because our estate planning team collaborates with our wealth management team within Mercer Advisors, we are able to work directly with your advisor to take stock of and account for all of your assets in your estate plan design. Your advisor can provide insights into your goals or special circumstances. We are always available for questions or updates after your estate plan is in place, no matter when or what you question may be. Clients with $1.5 million or more in assets under management can access foundational estate planning services at no additional cost, while clients with less in assets under management can do so for a subsidized flat fee.

Wondering how you can prepare? You do not need to do any research prior to meeting with your advisor. Your advisor can help you navigate each stage, starting with the questionnaire and continuing throughout the estate planning experience.

Our robust team of estate planning professionals work together with your advisor to ensure your needs are met, assets are accounted for, and any unique circumstances are considered. It’s all a vital part of your wealth plan—and it’s how we help you connect the dots.