Financial services firm Astute Wealth has developed a series of estate planning solutions that allow financial advisers to provide clients with a tangible estate plan.
The tools were developed to “remove the fear” from estate planning and take the sector “out of the too-hard basket”, Astute Wealth founder Hans Egger said on Friday.
The solution would be available to new and existing clients as part of the company’s client engagement platform, AstuteWheel.
“You have to be a user of the entire AstuteWheel to get access to this; we haven’t compartmentalised it,” Egger said.
Planners needed to deal with estate planning within their practices in order to ensure clients were fully protected, however, in the past the process had proved too inefficient, with some planners either outsourcing the task or putting it in the too-hard basket, he said.
The AstuteWheel estate planning solutions, which is an online interactive solution, enables the client, financial planner, solicitor and accountant to understand the client’s situation, without the client having to repeat and recall their details to each professional.
The solution details assets and liabilities, contains a family tree and entity diagram, which together explain who owns, owes and controls all the major assets and liabilities, what special relationships, or specific risks, need to be catered for, and what asset protection and tax consequences need to be considered.
“Most statements of advice have a cut-and-paste description of what a will, power of attorney and perhaps a testamentary trust are, and a motherhood statement that the client should see a solicitor to get everything implemented,” Egger said.
“The AstuteWheel estate planning tools will take the estate planning discussion to the next level, ensuring that the client is best looked after within the planner’s practice; a trusted environment.”
AstuteWheel contains six processes: estate plan, investment plan, debt plan, risk plan, income plan and retirement plan.
Since launching in June 2012, more than 300 financial advisers across 130 financial advice practices representing more than 40 dealer groups have subscribed to AstuteWheel.
