Estate Planning
Estate planning helps individuals and families prepare for the management and transfer of assets, healthcare decisions, incapacity and other important life events. A complete plan may involve legal documents, financial strategies, tax considerations and insurance solutions working together.
Tristate Financial Network helps coordinate the process with qualified independent legal and financial professionals in our partner network.
More Than a Will
Depending on your individual circumstances, an estate plan may address:
- How assets will be managed and transferred
- Who may make financial or healthcare decisions during incapacity
- Guardianship considerations for minor children
- Beneficiary designations and life insurance
- Long-term care considerations
- Business and succession-planning needs
- Charitable and legacy goals
- Potential probate, tax and administrative considerations
The appropriate documents and strategies depend on individual circumstances and applicable state and federal law.
Understanding Probate
Probate is the court-supervised process used to administer certain assets after death. Depending on the estate and applicable state law, probate may involve court filings, professional fees, public records and administrative time.
Some assets may pass outside probate because of ownership structure, beneficiary designations, trusts or other arrangements. An independent estate-planning attorney can explain how these rules apply to your circumstances.
Why Consider an Estate Plan?
A properly coordinated estate plan may help you:
- Document your wishes
- Prepare for possible incapacity
- Identify appropriate decision-makers
- Coordinate beneficiary designations
- Address the needs of minor children or other dependents
- Organize important financial and legal information
- Support charitable or legacy goals
- Evaluate potential probate and tax considerations with qualified professionals
How Tristate Helps
Tristate provides education, organization and implementation coordination to help clients work effectively with their independent legal, tax and financial professionals.
Our role is to serve as a central point of communication so that insurance solutions, beneficiary designations and other financial arrangements can be considered alongside the legal documents prepared by qualified independent professionals.
Coordination With Independent Professionals
Through our partner network, we can connect clients with qualified independent legal and financial professionals. Clients engage these professionals separately for services within their respective areas of expertise.
Implementation Support
At the direction of the client and the appropriate professional, we may help organize action items involving insurance policies, beneficiary information, account documentation and other implementation steps.
Process Management
We help clients organize important information, monitor agreed-upon action items and coordinate follow-up conversations with the professionals involved in the planning process.
Client Education
We provide general educational information about estate and legacy-planning concepts so clients can have more informed discussions with their legal, tax and financial professionals.
Ongoing Coordination
As family circumstances, assets and goals change, we can help clients identify when it may be appropriate to revisit their insurance arrangements or consult their professional advisors.
Bringing the Pieces Together
An estate plan may involve several professionals, documents and financial arrangements. Tristate helps clients stay organized and connected throughout the process so they can work with the appropriate professionals to address each part of their plan.
Estate Planning Partner
Integrated Trust Systems (ITS) was founded by Gary A. Loftsgard in 1985 originally as an outsource estate-planning service for law firms and sole practitioners. As part of the full-support offering, ITS provided state-of-the-art product technology and estate plan designs including innovative trust-funding procedures assisting both clients and institutional custodians.
Estate-planning services are provided separately by qualified independent professionals. Clients engage these professionals directly for legal services. Tristate and its independent agents do not receive compensation for professional referrals.
