Most of the estate planning conversations that matter never start in a lawyer’s office. They start during an annual review, or in a CPA’s conference room when a client mentions, almost in passing, that her father has been forgetting things. They start when an insurance agent pulls up a policy and sees a name that should have been changed years ago.
National Estate Planning Awareness Week, which runs October 19 to 25 this year, is a good moment to think about those conversations. The week was created to reach the public, and it was built around the professionals people already trust.
Why Was National Estate Planning Awareness Week Created?
In September 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 1499, supporting the designation of the third week of October as National Estate Planning Awareness Week. The effort was led by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils (NAEPC), whose members include attorneys, accountants, trust officers, insurance professionals, and financial advisors.
What stands out in the resolution is how broadly it describes estate planning. It talks about safekeeping documents, how assets are titled, naming beneficiaries, insurance and trust arrangements, and care of the person during their lifetime. That is not a description of a single document drafted by a single professional. It reads more like a description of a team.
The resolution closes by encouraging professionals to share estate planning information with the public. In other words, it asks the people who already sit across the table from families to help start the conversation.
Why Do Advisors Often See Estate Planning Issues First?
Each professional in a client’s life sees a different piece of the picture. A financial advisor sees how accounts are titled and who is named as beneficiary. A CPA sees the business owner who has never thought about what happens to the company if he cannot work. An insurance agent sees the policy that still lists a former spouse. A trust officer sees the adult son who cannot access his mother’s account because no one has the authority to act.
Most of these professionals were never trained to raise estate planning questions, and many reasonably worry about stepping outside their role. Even so, they are often the first to notice that something in a family’s plan is missing or out of date.
Families, for their part, usually know they should have a plan. What they tend to lack is a nudge from someone they trust, at a moment when the question feels relevant rather than abstract.
When Does the Estate Planning Conversation Come Up Naturally?
Advisors do not need to become estate planners to help. In our experience, the opening usually shows up during work you are already doing.
A beneficiary review is one of the most common. Life insurance, retirement accounts, and payable-on-death accounts pass to whoever is named on the form, regardless of what a will says. A form signed twenty years ago can quietly override a plan the client updated last year, and the person reviewing the account may be the only one in a position to notice.
A question about authority is another. If a client became incapacitated tomorrow, who could step in to manage accounts or talk with the bank? Without a durable power of attorney, a family may have to ask the probate court to appoint a conservator before anyone can pay the bills. It is a fair question to ask, and clients rarely find it intrusive.
Life changes open the door too. A client who has just lost a parent, been widowed, gone through a divorce, or sold a business is often already thinking about what comes next. Watching a family work through an estate tends to make people see their own situation differently, and a simple question asked with care is most likely to be welcomed in those moments.
Can Charitable Giving Open the Estate Planning Conversation?
For some clients, the easiest place to begin is with what they care about. Asking whether there are causes they would like to support someday often leads into a broader conversation about family, values, and what they hope to pass on.
That kind of question feels very different to a client than a question about death or incapacity. It invites them to think about the people and organizations that matter to them, which is where good planning begins anyway.
Is Estate Planning About Documents or About Authority?
Most people think of estate planning as paperwork. In practice, a plan only works if the right people have the right authority at the right time.
That means the questions that matter most are often about people rather than assets. Who manages the finances if the client cannot? Who makes medical decisions? Who serves as personal representative or successor trustee after death, and who steps in if that person cannot serve?
Advisors are frequently the first to learn when those answers are missing. A phone call from a client’s daughter asking how she is supposed to pay her father’s bills is usually a sign that the plan, if there is one, never addressed incapacity. Those calls are hard for everyone, and many of them can be avoided with planning done years earlier.
How Can Advisors and Estate Planning Attorneys Work Together?
At Heircraft Planning, we focus on estate planning and work alongside the advisors our clients already rely on. We do not offer financial planning or insurance, and we are not trying to replace the role you play in your client’s life. Our goal is to make sure the legal side of the plan supports the work you are already doing.
Mark Eiland, J.D., LL.M., AEP®, founded Heircraft Planning after more than 25 years in law, finance, and trust administration, including managing a bank trust department. That background means he has seen how plans actually play out after a death or incapacity, not just how they read on paper, and it shapes how we draft and how we work with a client’s other advisors.
Mark also holds the Accredited Estate Planner® designation from NAEPC, the same organization behind National Estate Planning Awareness Week. The designation reflects a commitment to the team approach the week was created to encourage.
How Can You Make National Estate Planning Awareness Week Count?
National Estate Planning Awareness Week was designed to connect families with the professionals who can help them. More often than not, that connection begins with an advisor who asks one thoughtful question at the right moment.
If you would like to talk through how we work with advisors, we would be glad to hear from you. You are also welcome to attend one of our free seminars in Mobile to see how we explain estate planning to families. Upcoming dates are listed at heircraftplanning.com/upcoming-events.
If you work with clients who do not have an estate plan, or whose plan has not been reviewed in years, we would welcome the opportunity to help. You can reach Mark at (251) 398-0081 or through heircraftplanning.com.
