Regardless of what kind of financial professional you are, from CPA to investment advisor to financial planner, your clients all have valuable digital assets that they need to protect, like personal files stored on the cloud, social media accounts or cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, they may well expect you, as their trusted advisor, to help them do this.
What they really need is a digital estate plan. While you might be happy to oblige them, the problem is, however, that you do not and cannot offer estate planning of any type to your clients. Fortunately, you can easily solve this problem by becoming an AmeriEstate Partner. That’s right. AmeriEstate Legal Plan, Inc. offers an exceptional partnership program that can quickly allow you to offer estate planning services to your clients with a minimum of effort on your part.
Defining Digital Assets
With the advent of computers, laptops, tablets, cellphones, email, et al., virtually everyone has at least a few digital assets. Simply put, a digital asset is any file stored on one of the above devices or in the cloud, that ubiquitous worldwide network of servers that users access via the internet.
Examples of digital assets an individual might own include the following:
- Documents
- Photographs
- Videos
- Emails
- Text messages
- Social media accounts
- Online banking and bill paying accounts
Businesses usually keep all of the above in digital format, too, but may also have the following digital assets as well:
- Company logo
- Spreadsheets
- Website
- Graphic files
- Design files
- PDFs
- Sales presentations
Given the ever-growing number of digital assets, the best way to define one is anything in a digital format that has either intrinsic or acquired value.
Creating the Digital Asset Estate Plan
When you become an AmeriEstate Partner, we act as your estate planning “back office,” helping each of your clients develop their own personalized digital asset estate plan.
The steps likely will include the following:
- Helping your clients take inventory of their respective digital assets, including the username, password and any other relevant information associated with each, such as the answers to commonly asked security questions
- Helping them decide where and to whom they want their respective digital assets to go when they die
- Suggesting the persons or entities they may wish to appoint as their respective digital executors
- Ensuring that their respective digital estate plans are legally binding and secure
Your Involvement
Depending on which AmeriEstate Partner Program you select (we offer three: Simply Refer, Refer Plus, and Full Circle), you can be as involved with your clients’ digital asset estate planning process as you desire. For instance, you can refer your clients to us for all of their estate planning needs and let us handle the rest. If you would like to be involved for some of the initial work you are more than welcome to, otherwise, rest assured knowing that we have it all handled.
Bottom Line
All in all, becoming an AmeriEstate Partner may be just what you and your clients are looking for to solve their estate planning issues, digital and otherwise. The difference between you and them, however, is that they don’t know that yet, but you now do!
To find out more, contact AmeriEstate Legal Plan, Inc. today. Ask to speak with our Senior Manager of Business Development, John Knickerbocker. He will be more than happy to answer all your questions and get you started on the road to what will surely be a highly complementary and advantageous mutual association between you and us.