According to 52% of Americans, it would be irresponsible to die without getting their affairs in order. Despite that, most people haven’t actually started the life-planning process, and less than one-third of U.S. residents have created a will as of 2024.
For many people, one of the most intimidating steps in this process isn’t deciding how to distribute their belongings or planning their funeral—it’s beginning and managing the conversation. Even though mortality isn’t a fun topic to discuss, it’s a critical part of helping loved ones make the most of the wealth and legacy their family members have prepared for them.
Fortunately, people don’t have to go through this process on their own. Banks can help facilitate this conversation by engaging their customers with planning services and financial strategies that maximize the wealth they’re passing along. By offering a range of options to explore, financial institutions can facilitate multigenerational wealth-building conversations that lead to greater longevity and prosperity in banking relationships.
Creating and Preserving Digital Content
By storing digital messages and memories during the life planning process, people can give their loved ones a sense of closure and help them understand their last wishes. Also, these services provide an opportunity to communicate important information about major assets and preserve valuable financial wisdom. To support this process, your bank will need to provide a platform that allows your customers to intuitively create, upload, and store many different types of content.1. Ethical Wills
Creating an ethical will is an excellent way for your customers to share after-death messages with their loved ones that can have a tangible effect on estate planning. Therefore, the creation of these documents is a vital part of any comprehensive life planning process—and merits a serious conversation between financial consultants and their clients. Some examples of things people can put in an ethical will include:- Beliefs. Ethical wills are a perfect place for people to express their values, faiths, and other thoughts that can affect how beneficiaries utilize assets.
- Apologies and confessions. Many people use their ethical will to make amends for past actions and decisions they regret.
- Advice. Your clients can share advice on living a moral, meaningful life in their ethical wills. These core principles often touch on the importance of wealth-building and the value of planning for the future.
- Stories. Ethical wills can also help people pass stories along to future generations. This important oral history can shape future financial decisions and establish long-term goals.
- Personal messages. If a person wants to share any other messages with their loved ones after they die, their ethical will is an excellent place to do so.
2. Managing Their Digital Estate
Though creating messages to share with loved ones after their deaths is not a new trend, the life planning process has changed in other ways over the years. These days, nearly everyone has a digital presence of some sort, from multiple online financial and social media accounts to cloud storage and personal archives. Because of that, your clients need a way to tell their loved ones exactly what should happen to their digital estate, including lists of passwords, website addresses, and a range of other relevant information. Your customers can start by considering various elements of their digital estate, including:- Social media accounts (Facebook, TikTok, etc.)
- Accounts with e-commerce/banking services
- Subscriptions to streaming platforms
- Email addresses
- Other logins and passwords
3. Getting Their Paperwork Together
At this point, your customers should have had an opportunity to make plans for the future of their digital estate and prepare final messages for their loved ones. Now, they’ll need to ensure these messages reach their intended destination—and your bank can help make that happen. When they get this far in the planning process, your customers should collect all the paperwork their loved ones and legal representatives might need after their death. Though that includes ethical wills and digital estate plans, these are far from the only documents needed for a complete and seamless process. Your clients should also track down their:- Last will
- Deeds and titles
- Birth/adoption certificate
- Insurance information
- Medical records
- Social Security card
- Marriage license
- Other legal documents
