Digital estate planning service for Planners launches
A new cloud-based platform to help advisers with estate planning has been launched this morning.
Zenplans aims to help Financial Planners organise, maintain, securely store and selectively share client personal and financial estate planning information to help improve client engagement, kick-start conversations about further support and create opportunities to connect with the next generation.
The system can also store client’s wishes, including details about their will and Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), to help organise their legacy. It can give Financial Planners easy access to key documents should the client die or become incapacitated, ensuring information is quickly accessible by the right people when needed.
Stephen Moses, Zenplans creater and former management consultant for EY, said “We all have so much personal and financial information, that it is hard enough to keep on top of it all ourselves, making it almost impossible for our loved ones to sort out when we pass away.
“And now everything is online, it can be difficult to know exactly what assets the person had, let alone where they are, making trying to piece it altogether really stressful at what is already an incredibly emotional time for those left behind.
“I wanted to do something to make it much easier for people to keep on top of all their important information during their lifetime, but also create a way for people to share all that key information securely with those closest to them to make estate administration easy.”
He added that Zenplans helps to identify any gaps in clients’ planning, giving Financial Planners the opportunity to operate at the forefront of estate planning and help clients and their families become more involved with their Financial Planning.
He said: “When clients share their Zenplans with their children, it offers advisers an organic way to connect and build meaningful relationships with those on the cusp of the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history.”
Zenplans is a web-based platform. Data is encrypted at transit, at rest and access is via multi factor authentication.
As a cloud-based product, all updates, maintenance and data backups are fully managed by Zenplans.
Overall the survey revealed a low level of engagement on estate planning despite many people wanting to pass on wealth to their children.
Schroders said the survey “lays bare” the gap in Financial Planning when it comes to estate planning.