Vanguard Offers New Digital Estate Planning Tools

Vanguard on Thursday announced the launch of an enhanced suite of estate planning tools and services for clients to use with their advisors.

The new intergenerational wealth and legacy planning capabilities are being delivered via a partnership with Vanilla, a provider of digital estate planning tools and solutions.

According to Vanguard’s announcement, the offer was successfully piloted over the past year to a small group of eligible advised clients within the Vanguard Personal Advisor Wealth Management program, which has a $5 million asset minimum for enrollment. It will now scale up to provide more ultra-high-net-worth Vanguard investors with a “powerful visualized approach” to help manage and achieve their current and future estate planning objectives.

As the announcement points out, estate planning is a critical element of financial planning today, but its complexity can often be daunting for investors and advisors alike. Thus, a well-designed estate planning approach complemented by the right tools and technology can empower individuals to manage their legacy planning in accordance with federal and state tax rules.

Clients will work directly with their advisor to leverage Vanilla to build integrated visualizations of their net worth, asset transfer diagrams, estimated tax calculations, ongoing estate monitoring and the ability to model the effects of further estate planning scenarios.

Massy Williams, principal and head of wealth management at Vanguard, says this development shows that the firm is responding to clients’ increasingly complex planning needs that span multiple generations. She adds that Vanguard began working with Vanilla in 2022 and plans to roll out access to the new estate planning tools to advised clients over the coming year, in addition to evaluating opportunities to expand access to a broader set of clients.

Credit: Bloomberg