Journal of Financial Planning: February 2026
Matt Wilson is head of business strategy for Envestnet | MoneyGuide (www.moneyguidepro.com/ifa). With over 20 years of experience, he brings a wealth of industry knowledge to Envestnet | MoneyGuide. In his current role, Mr. Wilson is responsible for managing existing client relationships and establishing new relationships. He prides himself on being a valuable resource to both current subscribers and prospects that are interested in developing high-quality financial plans.
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In the last 10 years, the looming “Great Wealth Transfer” and how financial planners can serve the next generation of wealth holders has been a big part of estate planning discussions. While the magnitude of intergenerational wealth transfer is significant, the greater challenge for financial professionals is ensuring that families are prepared financially and structurally, and from an educational standpoint, for what happens before and after assets change hands.
Estate planning is no longer just about transferring wealth. It’s about transferring understanding, confidence, and continuity. Wealth technology solutions can provide financial professionals with the tools to do all three.
Wealth Technology and Estate Planning
Wealth planning technology available in today’s marketplace can help create a digital-first, engaging, and hyper-personalized experience that the children and grandchildren of clients expect. This technology helps advisers maintain management of the assets that these next-generation clients stand to inherit. Advisers can use certain technology solutions to visually demonstrate the impact of estate planning strategies in a comprehensive manner, following the estate tax changes under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which came into effect January 1, 2026.
For example, the federal estate and gift tax exemption was permanently elevated to $15 million for every individual, and $30 million for married couples. This provision is a relief for many high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families who were expecting the higher federal estate and gift tax exemptions to “sunset” in 2026.
It is indeed a welcome relief to know that many estates across the United States will not be subject to federal estate taxes. However, favorable tax conditions do not eliminate the need for proactive estate planning, particularly as asset values grow, family circumstances evolve, and state-specific estate taxes, probate costs, and liquidity needs remain very real concerns.
Wealth management solutions can show wealthy clients and their heirs the impact of potential estate planning strategies on their complex portfolios. Proactive estate planning approaches and the strategic use of gift exemptions can also be visually demonstrated for clients and their children and grandchildren.
For example, some advanced estate planning tools can enable financial professionals to visualize the impact of establishing trusts for clients and their heirs, as well as the potential benefits of different gifting strategies. Advisers may use scenario modeling to show clients side-by-side outcomes of different planning paths to help clients clearly understand the long-term implications of today’s decisions across generations.
Furthermore, these tools may be able to demonstrate how families can equalize assets and distribute them effectively. Depending on the technology product, advisers and planners may be able to create and compare scenarios for multiple generations of a family at the same time. If the family owns a business, advisers who can visualize a strategy across multiple scenarios, such as different prices for which the business can be sold, can provide significant value. This approach can allow advisers to proactively address estate liquidity, tax exposure, and succession outcomes before an event occurs rather than reacting after value has already been created or lost.
In some cases, financial professionals can potentially use modern fintech and wealthtech solutions to visualize the entire transfer of wealth from one generation to another for clients and their families, within an integrated digital experience. This visualization can be especially powerful when it is produced during meetings about crafting estate planning documents, which themselves can be customized and enhanced using fintech solutions.
Understanding Estate Planning Documents
In general, fairness planning tools for distributing assets equally, and data analytics for calculating the results of various scenarios and strategies, can make the experience of crafting and reviewing estate planning documents like wills and trusts more engaging, so that children and grandchildren of clients can better understand the contents of these documents and why they are important. By integrating estate planning technology directly into financial planning workflows, advisers can ensure that estate documents remain aligned with evolving goals, cash flow needs, and family dynamics.
For example, some modern planning solutions enable clients to log into an interactive portal and codesign estate plans and financial plans. As part of the design process, they can incorporate new strategies, see their potential impact, and conduct stress-testing, which can lead to discussions about financial risks and opportunities with their adviser or planner.
Clients and their heirs can also view detailed cash flow schedules when they wish to update how much money clients will need to ensure their heirs can meet their life or financial goals.
Planning for Beneficiaries with Special Needs
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one in four (28.7 percent) of adults in the United States live with some type of disability, including those related to difficulties with making decisions, physical mobility, independent living, hearing, vision, and self-care (such as dressing or bathing themselves).1
The CDC also reports that more people living with disabilities than without have risk factors such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
Taken together, these CDC findings indicate that many more Americans than perhaps we realize have special needs and will require special care as they grow older. Financial planners can help parents and grandparents plan ahead to ensure these heirs will be adequately and comfortably provided for after they inherit.
Planning for special needs care requires specialized expertise. Advanced estate planning tools can help financial professionals give peace of mind to clients with children or grandchildren with special needs. Advanced planning tools that model lifetime care costs, tax impacts, and trust structures can help advisers quantify what “peace of mind” truly means for families supporting loved ones with disabilities. For example, data analytics features can estimate how much money would be required to pay for a beneficiary’s specific type of care during their lifetime, based on different life spans.
Based on data from a variety of sources, fintech solutions can empower advisers to show clients what various forms of special needs care, such as paid caregivers and medical devices, would cost, depending on how long their loved ones could live with their respective disabilities. These solutions can also help clients estimate the costs of necessary home renovations for their beneficiaries and identify the best adult living options near where they live.
In addition, fintech solutions can use data analytics to estimate the taxes that their loved ones may have to pay over time, and visualize opportunities to tax-efficiently manage the money set aside for them.
Since trusts would likely be more effective than outright distributions for providing for loved ones with special needs, advisers can utilize advanced estate planning tools to create an engaging, interactive experience where they can craft trust documents together with clients.
Knowledge Is Power: Educational Tools for Breaking Down Complex Topics
Cryptocurrency and other digital assets are increasingly playing a role in estate planning discussions. In addition to walking clients and their heirs through different scenarios related to crypto assets, advisers and planners can also use modern planning tools to help multiple generations better understand digital assets and other sophisticated financial topics.
According to a survey published last year by Bryn Mawr Trust, although Americans value their digital assets at $191,516 on average, the majority of them (76 percent) have little or no knowledge of digital estate planning.2 Despite this huge opportunity, only 44 percent of survey respondents reported that their advisers had addressed digital assets, and digital estate planning, with them in conversation. This presents a meaningful opportunity for advisers to use technology-driven education and visualization tools to bridge knowledge gaps and help families plan responsibly for assets that their heirs may not yet fully understand.
To that end, advisers can use some modern fintech solutions to email links that take clients to an educational portal where they can complete fun exercises where they can learn about crypto or another complex topic, and see visual representations of how they would affect their estate plans. They can also learn how to protect their digital assets today and for the next generation.
Not Just for the Ultra-Wealthy
Estate planning is not an elite practice for the ultra-high-net-worth alone.
Despite widespread awareness of estate planning’s importance, fewer than one-third of Americans actually have a will, according to a Caring.com survey of about 2,500 Americans.3 This reveals a persistent gap between intention and action that advisers can address with technology-assisted planning workflows.
Even clients with modest estates benefit from clear beneficiary designations, basic documents, and technology-enabled planning processes that reduce complexity and ensure intentions are carried out. Financial planners with an estate planning offering can bring this vital service to a broader spectrum of individuals and families.
Digital solutions can help financial planners and advisers, regardless of their practice size, make estate planning accessible to high-net-worth and mass-affluent investors and their families—and optimize what they can do to grow, protect, and effectively transfer their clients’ multi-generational wealth, at scale, as their practices themselves grow.
When supported by the right technology, estate planning is a powerful way for advisers to demonstrate ongoing value, deepen family relationships, and support continuity across generations.
A survey of 10,000 Americans by the online platform Trust & Will found that 40 percent of clients would change to another adviser for estate planning services.4 Clearly, the public understands that estate planning is a key element of a complete financial picture. Fintech and wealthtech solutions available to planners and advisers in the present marketplace can strengthen estate planning services and insights, as well as next-generation client retention.
Endnotes
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2025. “Disability Impacts All of Us Infographic.” Disability and Health. www.cdc.gov/disability-and-health/articles-documents/disability-impacts-all-of-us-infographic.html.
- WSFS Financial Corporation. 2024, December 05. “Bryn Mawr Trust Survey Reveals Americans Value Digital Assets at $191,516 on Average, but Gaps Exist in Digital Asset Awareness and Estate Planning.” https://investors.wsfsbank.com/news-and-events/press-releases/press-releases-details/2024/Bryn-Mawr-Trust-Survey-Reveals-Americans-Value-Digital-Assets-at-191516-on-Average-But-Gaps-Exist-in-Digital-Asset-Awareness-and-Estate-Planning/.
- Lurie, Victoria. 2025. “2025 Wills and Estate Planning Study.” Caring.com. www.caring.com/resources/wills-survey.
- Trust & Will. 2025. Trust & Will 2025 Annual Financial Advisor Report. https://trustandwill.com/learn/financial-advisor-report-2025.