Over the past few years, more and more estate planning services have moved online. Some of the companies have been providing legal services for decades and simply added secure digital tools to what they were already doing. Others are newer IT start-ups that were built around the internet from day one. Online estate planning has become very popular in the USA because it is faster, more affordable, and easier to access than traditional in-office appointments, and we will discuss these advantages below.
Estate planning is the process of designating who will handle your responsibilities—such as taking care of your kids and pets—in case of your death or incapacitation, as well as who will receive your assets. The process of creating estate planning documents used to be complicated and expensive. You had to find an attorney, meet with them, show your testamentary capacity, discuss all the issues, create paper documents, adjust them as many times as needed, and so on.
Today all you need is will maker software to create a packet of documents that includes, but is not limited to the following: Last Will, Living Trust, Living Will, Financial Power of Attorney, and Medical Power of Attorney. You can prepare many of these documents online in just a few hours and then download, print, and sign them when it is convenient for you. Let’s go over what all these documents mean.
These are not all the documents that can be created with estate planning software. There are hundreds of them. Besides, you can use online estate planning services for your business needs. Companies such as eForms, US Legal Forms, Rocket Lawyer, and others offer business incorporation and all the legal documents necessary to run a business, including contract templates, invoice templates, and many more.
For most Americans, the family home is the largest single asset that will be in any will. For homes, severe weather events such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, hailstorms, and severe freezes have become more frequent and of greater impact on the house’s value. In recent years, the U.S. has averaged more than $20bn of damages in weather and climate disasters every year, and homeowners are spending around $23 billion annually in order to repair their homes from such disaster. In practical terms, this means that weather has an impact on what you leave behind for your family.
Recent reports estimate that about 26% of all U.S. homes, worth roughly $12.7 trillion, are at severe or extreme risk from flooding, hurricane winds, or wildfires. The average insurance claim for water damage or freezing is now well over $12,000, and roughly one in fifty insured homes files such a claim in a typical year. Such massive expenses surely pose a risk to one’s assets that you planned to pass on to your loved ones.
When you write or update your will, it is a good idea to think about how local weather and environmental risks might affect both your home and your broader estate. You may want to be very clear about:
Your will and other estate planning documents decide who will own your home and who will be in charge, but they do not, by themselves, protect the property from weather-related damage while you are alive. That is where homeowners insurance and, in some cases, an optional home warranty can play a role. Insurance is designed to cover most types of major losses, while a home warranty can help with the cost of repairing or replacing systems and appliances that may be caused by extreme weather, wear and tear, or any other condition, over the course of time.
If you want to understand how weather and other local risk factors might affect your particular address, you can use the free Home Warranty Need Index at WarrantyIndex.com.
The best estate planning software is a question of personal preference. There are three major types of estate planning software: downloadable, cloud-based, and mobile. Some people prefer to buy downloadable software, install it on their well-protected computer, create their documents, and keep them offline. For them, Nolo would be the best estate planning company because they sell the best downloadable software on the market.
The majority of estate planning services use cloud-based software. All the templates and the finished documents are stored securely in the cloud. They are easily accessible from the client’s computer or a mobile device. You can save your documents online, download them to your computer, email them to yourself and your agents, or print them out and keep the paper copies in a safe place. Almost every estate planning company offers these types of cloud-based services. Some companies, such as an Islamic will maker Shariawiz, even allow their customers to make unlimited changes to their wills using their platforms.
The most progressive estate planning services place their bets on mobile estate planning software. Almost every American aged 10 and up has a smartphone that they use for all their online needs. As younger generations grow up, they use the internet for almost every aspect of their life: renting an apartment or a car, ordering food, buying anything they need, making appointments, working, etc. This list will include (and for some it already includes) estate planning. Estate planning companies are already starting to cater to this part of the population by adding mobile apps to their software options.
Initially, many online estate planning services emerged as an affordable alternative to similar services offered in the attorney’s office. Companies, like Fabric, DoYourOwnWill, offer online will making free of charge. Their main business is selling life or term insurance, and they offer an opportunity to create a will online as a token of appreciation to their present and potential customers. However, if you need the whole estate planning kit, it will not be available for free.
Affordable estate planning documents and packages are widely available online. The prices range from $19.95 per document at US Legal Wills to $199 for an annual subscription at eForms. Some companies, like US Legal Forms and FormSwift, offer a deep discount when you pay annual price vs. month-to-month. In short, there are estate planning solutions available for any budget.
The first online estate planning services appeared more than 20 years ago. Since then, the idea of online estate planning became very popular, and online will makers are now in great demand. The main reasons for their popularity are the price, which is much cheaper than the services in a brick-and-mortar attorney’s office, as well as convenience. You don’t have to go anywhere to create a will, a power of attorney, or even an expat will. All you need is a computer, or even a mobile device will do.
Also, online estate planning is a great time-saving opportunity because filling in state-specific templates created by lawyers and printing out the documents usually does not require much time.
Remember that online estate planning software comes in three types: downloadable, cloud-based, and mobile. The majority of estate planning companies use cloud-based software. However, all of these types are safe, secure, and protected, so which software is the best depends only on your personal preference.