Estate Planning Health Check
View’s estate planning health check is an annual review process designed exclusively for accredited estate planning facilitators.
Accredited facilitators can offer the solution to any of their customers that have completed an estate plan via the View Legal platform or its predecessor (elawyer). View will provide you with the appropriate templates and scripts to assist your customer review their estate plan and ensure that you are not inadvertently providing legal advice.
As with other adviser facilitated solutions delivered by View, the process and pricing of the annual estate planning health check is a wholesale model, designed to allow the facilitating adviser to bundle the solution with other services they deliver to the customer.
This means that you, as the adviser, decide what the price point should be for your customers based on the wholesale prices provided below.
Adviser Support
The health check operates on a rolling 12 month membership, per couple, per annum.
Advisers may upgrade, downgrade or opt out of the health check system at any time in the 30 days prior to the anniversary of each rolling 12 month period integrating it into their usual annual review process.
Below is an example of what other advisers have done to integrate the Estate Planning Health Check into their existing annual review workflow.
Step 1
Annual review is due for customer
Step 2
As part of the review process, adviser positions customer that a review of their estate planning can be done and agrees pricing
Step 3
Adviser purchases the service level with View based on knowledge of customer
Step 4
Adviser receives a template email from View with suggested wording and next steps for providing to customer
Step 5
Adviser emails online diagnostic tool to customer
Step 6
Once customer completes diagnostic tool questionnaire, View reviews and provides the adviser with the results and template response for customer
Step 7
Adviser emails customer to advise outcomes and any next steps that they should consider
The Three Service Levels
and their features are as follows
Compliance
Annual Health Check-
Access to the web-based diagnostic tool every 12 months
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Lawyer reviewed rating on diagnostic results with a rating of either green (being clean bill of health), amber (being possible issues), and red (being concerns identified) – with the adviser and customer to decide whether to request further assistance from View Legal. If there is any doubt, the adviser should submit a free review to View;
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Checklist of key macro issues that have changed in the prior 12 months (that either the adviser or customer can use as a point of reference for self-directed research and assessment).
Comprehensive
Annual Health Check-
All of the features of the compliance package; PLUS
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Report provided by View Legal explaining the health check rating determined by the diagnostic tool
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White paper providing an analysis of each of the key macro issues relevant to the customer's estate plan.
Concierge
Annual Health Check-
All of the features of the comprehensive package; PLUS
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Online meeting with a specialist estate planning lawyer from View (unlimited length) to discuss:
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(A) any issues identified via the diagnostic tool;
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(B) any estate planning related questions that the customer or adviser has in relation to the existing estate planning arrangements;
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(C) the key macro changes.
Why View's Estate Planning Health Check (via Yearly membership) could be for you
| Not for you | Could be for you |
|---|---|
| You believe estate planning is a ‘set and forget’ – once off exercise. | You are concerned that the heritage approach of only reviewing an estate plan every few years – or urgently due to some dramatic trigger event (health scare, overseas travel etc) – is not a responsible approach. |
| You believe reviewing an estate plan is an expensive process – both in terms of time and funds expended. | You know that by using technology as an enabler and working collaboratively with a legal provider whose entire focus is helping advisers deliver estate planning to their customers you can create a time effective and high value solution. |
| You believe that post the Royal Commission it is best for advisers to avoid areas such as estate planning. | You know that in a post Royal Commission environment, compliance with such fundamental principles as the ‘know your client’ rule under the Corporations Act is mandatory. Regularly reviewing a customer’s estate plan is arguably the single most important aspect of addressing this compliance issue. |
| You can do all aspects of estate planning inhouse (eg by using template document providers) because you have insurance protection to provide legal documents, templates and advice, even though you are not a lawyer. | You are concerned that essentially all legal template providers conveniently ignore the fact that you are carrying an uninsurable risk and potentially breaching professional standards by using their platforms to create legal documents and advice. |
| You believe all legal template documents are essentially the same and feel nothing can really go wrong no matter how poorly the underlying health check may be crafted. | You want to access the highest quality legal health check for your customers crafted by highly specialised lawyers who sign off on each and every use of the health check by customers of your firm. |
| You believe ‘legally backed’ providers are offering a solution that will stop you from getting sued. | You have read the fine print and know that ‘legally backed’ essentially is designed to protect the template provider – and shift all risk to you and your firm. In other words, real friends don’t let friends perform unlicensed and uninsured legal work. |
| You are relaxed that when it becomes ‘all about the tech’, the legal niceties often become someone else’s problem. | You are concerned that while technology should always be an enabler, it should not be used to enable the prospect of class actions against your firm due to underlying errors in the health check caused by deficient technology builds. |
| You do not want to use View for any of your estate planning support of your customers. | Again – all good – see above line item. |
| You believe online communities should be free. | Community members know that anything of substance that is ‘free’ either means you’re the product, or taxes you in other ways (eg perpetual sales pitches or little accountability for delivery of content). Here, there are no sales and a passionate focus on sharing high value insights. |
| All you care about is the price point. | While the pricing must be fair, you are also interested to ensure you get value, quality, service and shifting of legal risk to the health check provider; not you and your firm. |
| You want a provider that offers, as one example ‘’50% off for the first 12 months if you sign up today’’. | You prefer providers that offer no discounts – knowing that the discounts actually penalise the existing members. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, the annual health check is likely to be considered legal advice.
Arguably, the leading case in this area is Legal Practice Board v Computer Accounting and Tax Pty Ltd [2007] WASC184.
In this particular case, an accountant arranged for a trust deed to be bought for a client over the internet. The base trust instrument had been written by lawyers however, the accountant then populated the template.
In doing so, the court held that practically this meant that the accounting firm was breaching the relevant legislation.
In all likelihood, the accountant (and indeed any adviser, other than a qualified lawyer) would not be covered by their professional indemnity insurance in relation to any issues that arose out of the trust instrument.
Despite the proliferation of online providers, the decision in this case remains a very important one for any adviser facilitating legal solutions.
In many respects, it reinforces the approach adopted by View who, while leveraging significantly off technology driven solutions, still ensure that all documentation – including the estate planning health check solution – is reviewed by a fully qualified, specialist lawyer.
View Legal provides the legal advice when reviewing the legal documentation.
No comparative providers offer this protection.
No.
You have complete discretion as to what pricing approach you adopt with your customer and this should not be disclosed to View.
It will be up to you (perhaps in conjunction with your licensee, if relevant) as to whether you disclose any payments made by your firm to View to the customer.
All aspects of the diagnostic tool are reviewed on a regular basis based on a number of factors, including changes in the law.
You and your customer get access to the most up to date version at the time of each health check.
If you did this, it could be considered you are providing legal advice and it is likely that your professional insurance will not cover you.
Refer to the FAQ ‘Is providing a customer an annual health check of their estate planning documents really providing legal advice if I am not a lawyer?’’
Go to your membership login here and navigate to the ‘Benefits’ button. This will take you to your dashboard.
In the RESOURCE section download the ‘Flyer – Positioning Value Toolkit’ to assist with the scripting that you can use for how you add value facilitating all aspects of estate planning for your customers, including an annual health check.
On the basis that you can upgrade the chosen service level at any time (via your membership login here), if you are in any doubt as to the appropriate service level for any customer it will likely be best to select the Compliance package initially.
An adviser is able to provide greater value to their customers by including a review of the customer’s Estate Planning (i.e. financial planning post-death) to ensure this continues to meet the customer’s needs, just like the other aspects of the customer’s financial planning. Customers can feel confident that all aspects of their financial planning are being looked after.
It can be very difficult for a customer to know when they need to amend their will, or another aspect of their estate plan. They don’t know what’s going to cause an issue. They don’t know what questions they should ask their adviser. By flipping it around and having the adviser do an Annual Estate Planning Health Check, it takes the onus off the customer to have to know when a change is required.
