Most people think estate planning is something wealthy families do with a team of lawyers in a conference room. In reality, 69% of Americans have no estate plan at all. Not because they don't care about their families, but because they don't know where to start.
That uncertainty ends here.
We built the Estate Planning Guide inside BestFarewell to help anyone, regardless of net worth or family complexity, organize the information their loved ones will need someday. The tool walks you through five clear pillars: your assets, your people, your team, your wishes, and any special details worth noting.
This is not a will. This is not a trust. This is the preparation work that makes those legal documents possible.
Why Most People Never Start
The estate planning industry has a language problem. Terms like executor, beneficiary, and power of attorney make people feel like they need a law degree before they can begin. Add in the emotional weight of thinking about your own mortality, and it becomes easier to put off until tomorrow.
The Five Pillars approach breaks everything into plain questions:
What do you own? Who do you want to receive it? Who do you trust to handle things? What are your healthcare preferences? Is there anything unusual your family should know?
These questions can be answered in about 30 minutes. Maybe less, depending on how organized you already are.
How the Tool Works
When you open the Estate Planning Guide from your BestFarewell dashboard, you see five numbered sections. You can complete them in any order. Every answer saves automatically. You can stop and come back whenever you want.
The first pillar, My Assets, asks about your home, bank accounts, retirement savings, insurance policies, and anything else of value. You do not need exact balances. Approximate ranges work fine. The goal is creating a map your family can follow.
My People focuses on beneficiaries. Who should receive what? You can link family members you have already added to BestFarewell, which saves time and keeps your information consistent across the platform.
My Team is where you choose the helpers: the executor who will manage your estate through probate, a healthcare proxy who can make medical decisions if you cannot, and a guardian for minor children if that applies to your situation.
My Wishes covers healthcare directives. These are deeply personal decisions about medical treatment, pain management, and organ donation. The tool presents each choice clearly and lets you add notes explaining your reasoning.
Final Details captures anything that does not fit neatly into the other sections. Complex family dynamics. Questions you want to ask an attorney. Situations that might require special planning.
Integration with the Rest of BestFarewell
The Estate Planning Guide does not exist in isolation. When you add family members as beneficiaries or fiduciaries, those connections sync with your Family Management System. If you update contact information in one place, you have the option to update it everywhere.
Healthcare preferences you document here can inform your Farewell Plan. The stories you tell about why a specific heirloom should go to a specific person can become part of their memorial record someday.
When you finish, you can export everything as a PDF. This document is designed to bring to an estate planning attorney or financial advisor. It organizes all the information they need to draft your legal documents efficiently.
You Do Not Need to Be Wealthy to Do This
Estate planning is not about protecting large sums of money from taxes. For most families, it is about making sure the people you love do not have to guess what you wanted.
A parent with young children needs someone designated as guardian. A homeowner with a mortgage needs clarity about what happens to that property. Anyone with a retirement account has beneficiaries listed somewhere, and those designations may be outdated.
New parents should do this. Young professionals should do this. Retirees who think they already handled everything years ago should probably review their plans again.
This Conversation Is Worth Having
Sitting down to think about your estate is not a fun activity. It puts things into perspective in a way that feels uncomfortable. You are acknowledging that someday you will not be here.
But that acknowledgment is also a gift. It means your family will not have to make difficult decisions while grieving. They will not argue over your intentions because your intentions will be documented. They will not spend months tracking down accounts and paperwork because you already created the map.
Thirty minutes now can save your family countless hours later. More importantly, it can save them from the added pain of uncertainty during an already difficult time.
Getting Started
The Estate Planning Guide is available to BestFarewell members with Premium plans. If you are already a member, you can find it in your dashboard under the Estate section.
If you are not sure this is right for you, consider this: every family deserves peace of mind. Not just wealthy families. Not just complicated families. Every family.
Your loved ones will be grateful you took the time.