This is Estate Planning with Mike and Scott (Ep. 15)

Welcome to Ideas by Mike, the podcast with Mike Milligan, where you will find one-of-a-kind financial planning advice for your one-of-a-kind life. With over 22 years of experience as a Certified Financial Planner, Mike shares experiences and advice on crafting simple, easy-to-understand financial plans based on your values and priorities. He believes that taking a personalized approach is the best way to prepare for the future and give meaning to your finances. So, follow along as Mike, and from time to time, his guests, explore different strategies and tools that could help you secure your financial future in retirement. Now, onto the show.

Hello, and welcome to the Ideas by Mike podcast with your host, Mike Milligan. I'm Wendy McConnell. Well, hello there, Mike. How are you?

Well, Wendy, it is a great day to be here. I mean, I just can't tell you, I am so excited. We have worked our way through the One of a Kind Financial Planning process, and here we are talking about legacy planning today. We got Scott Carey, who is— who's the creator and founder of Get Snug, which is a tool that we use, right? So I just like— just to recap for the whole audience, right, the One of a Kind Financial Planning process is all about Um, is all about tax planning, the biggest expense you'll ever have in your life. Retirement income planning, which is taking the fear and anxiety of you having or running out of money in retirement. Investment planning, putting fees and risk aligned with each other so that your money is growing to keep up with inflation. Long-term care planning, because at the end of your life you deserve to be cared for. And then finally, estate planning. Just that final I love you letter. that people give to their family without leaving a mess. And I'm excited to share, you know, with Scott this, the tool Snug, to not only our clients but advisors who listen to our podcast and others. So, this is going to be a great one today, Wendy.

All right. So, Scott, welcome to the show. We appreciate you being here.

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you guys and also your audience about Snug and legacy planning. More broadly?

Scott, we always start because we provide a one-of-a-kind financial plan for, for somebody's one-of-a-kind life, because I believe that everybody lives a one-of-a-kind life. There's none of us that are exactly alike, that we don't have the same goals, don't have the same amount of money, you know, we don't have the same life experience. So the question I always ask a guest is Is what makes you one of a kind?

Yeah, thanks for asking that. And I would say that we really have 2 audiences for that. So we have clients, our end users who are actually getting their estate plans, and then we have our direct customers as well, which are financial professionals. And for clients, the thing that really makes us one of a kind is that we really put an emphasis on holistic. Estate planning. There are a lot of document generators out there to create a will or a power of attorney, but what those miss are the fact that settling an estate involves so much more. It's about discovering where all of the assets are held, who's— where are the utility accounts for the house that mom is continuing to live in? What's the password for dad's iPhone? All of that we allow clients to store and then share with their loved ones so they don't have to go through this really long process of discovery during a time of grieving. And then we really allow professionals to, financial professionals to take a role in helping prepare that legacy and making sure that everything is set and prepared for those loved ones so they can really provide a bridge to the next generation.

So Scott, what inspired you to create Snug and what gaps in the estate planning market did you aim to address with your platform?

Yeah, so I was, my first brush with estate planning came in my 20s. I was a relatively early employee at Uber, and I was seeing a financial advisor to talk through stock options and just how to handle all of that from a financial standpoint. And my financial advisor, doing his job well, uh, said I need to get an estate plan in place. So I drove an hour and a half, uh, to see this attorney and paid $4,000 to get a trust in place. And The first draft of the trust had somebody else's name in it. It was clearly a case of copying and pasting gone awry. And, you know, that's fine. We got it all taken care of in the end, but it just drove home to me that this is clearly something that is template-driven and something that needs to be automated to avoid these kinds of And there was this huge opportunity that was missed because I had a relationship with my financial advisor and he knew what my life situation was and would be in a better place to actually give me the guidance that I need and help me create an estate plan that actually fits my current life goals and situation. And so that was the beginning of it.

It's kind of— I'm intrigued by that, right? Because you said you drove an hour and a half, paid $4,000, it didn't come back correct, right? So like, I mean, you didn't see the value in paying the $4,000 initially, correct? Because you didn't get something what you need. But there's a lot of people that will just not do an estate plan because they don't see the value in it.

Can you—

I mean, you've done a tremendous amount of research about people who die without a will, intestate, and what it costs their family. Can you just nerd on us a little bit and tell us some numbers, like some stats?

Yeah. So the first thing I'll say, and you hit the nail on the head, Mike, is that 60% of Americans don't have an estate plan. So the market that we're serving here are people who think Well, I'm in my 30s, I'm healthy, I don't have a ton of wealth, I don't need to do this right now. And so that leads to this huge market of people that never go through the process. And what they're leaving themselves vulnerable to is having the government, the state, actually assign all of their assets and give their children to guardians that may not be the people that they intended. The cost of going through probate may be tens of thousands of dollars, particularly if an estate is not well organized and there are multiple people arguing about the assets in an estate because the wishes of the individual were not made clear through a well-designed estate plan.

No, that's, that's, that's phenomenal that you said that, right? Just to reiterate, 60% of people don't have an estate plan. And there's, uh, you said $10,000, $12,000 of lost money because it's not organized well. I mean, those stats alone, right? It's so, so like, here's the interesting part, right, is the technology that you've been able to create because you've been able to take, you know, you know how Uber— you said you work for Uber. Uber revolutionized how we, how how we move around cities, right? It's just absolutely amazing. And the opportunity it gave people, right, to earn additional income is just amazing. Basically what you've done is you've taken technology now to solve the need for 60% of people who don't have estate plan. So like, what, what are some of the— when you put this template together with Snug, right, that you saw was part of this, how is technology going to enable us to bring that number down from 60 to something much less?

Yeah, so I think the first thing, and this may not actually sound like a big tech advance, but the thing that I think will actually bring that number down the most is by allowing financial professionals to provide these services to their clients. So allowing professionals to step in at whatever level of support that a client needs, uh, whether that's allowing the client to do it entirely on their own or walking through the process together in office or over Zoom, or maybe just helping get everything printed and notarized and executed. I think allowing people to provide that bespoke service without adding the friction of going to see an attorney and paying an attorney's prices, uh, I think that brings the number down the most. But looking more future-oriented and exciting technologies, this may sound maybe like a trope at this point, but the things that AI is going to allow for in estate planning is pretty incredible. So there's a tremendous amount of consistency that's needed in drafting estate documents. We aren't having AI draft estate documents. I don't know if that's actually a huge breakthrough. What is interesting is we could see a future where we have an AI-generated phone call that is having a natural conversation with a client about what their goals are, what they want to achieve, and that allows for a much more complex estate plan to be generated without having a really cluttered or overwhelming visual interface. So I'm excited just about that diagnosis and using AI for that client intake.

What are some common misconceptions people have about estate planning and how does Snug help to clarify that?

Well, yeah, that's a good question. So the one that I hear all the time is, it's, I don't have an estate, I'm not wealthy. And I think that's really just a branding issue as much as Anything, right? Having an estate plan sounds big. Having a trust, well, you know, I don't want my kids to grow up as spoiled brats with a trust. Those are the things that people think of when they hear these words. But the reality is that everybody has an estate. Everybody has a default estate plan. It's just the one that the state gave you. So it's important that everybody has an estate plan at every level. And I think the issue has been that no, people who don't have a particularly complex estate don't want to pay $4,000, $5,000 to protect it. And so Snug is allowing this to be much more accessible and make it easy to update as life changes. So it makes sense to get an estate plan at the outset whenever you become an adult and then change it as life changes.

And what I'm hearing you say Scott, is that, um, that in the most complex situation, attorneys probably are still needed.

Definitely. And we have a lot of customers who are attorneys, to be clear. Um, right, we— there is definitely a place for attorneys, particularly in these complex situations.

But what I also hear you say is, as your life evolves, right, These things can be changed, right? The only time a revocable living trust cannot be changed is when you are incapacitated, right? Or you die. It's so like, as you're, as you're going through life, right, SNUG is a solution until something just slaps you over the head and becomes too complex.

Yeah, that's, that's— you, you are dead on, Mike. That is Exactly right. We have clients, or we have customers, financial advisors, and I'd be curious to hear your take on this as well, Mike. We have a lot of customers who will, who have clients with complex estates, but they know that their clients aren't going to bother to go see an attorney for a couple years. And so they'll still get them set up with a will, a power of attorney, and healthcare documents just to make sure they're protected until they actually go through the process of seeing an attorney.

Well, that's— you're exactly right there, right? Because like our goal is to make sure every interaction we have with somebody that constitutes financial planning, people know about our desire to have an estate plan. And it's just like, it's just like somebody who wants to get healthy, right? You know, running, running and lifting weights and spending 5 to 7 hours a week in a gym is going to be great. Sometimes you just got to get people to walk, right, 15 minutes a day. And that's like what this is, right? The other thing that I find really fascinating, Scott, is I feel like I'm in— did you ever watch the cartoon The Jetsons? Did you ever watch that cartoon?

A couple episodes. I wouldn't say that I, I know all of the characters by name, but I'm aware of the concept. I've seen a few.

It's like this futuristic world, right, where everybody's got these floating cars and— right? And I never really thought that I would say this, right? But I feel like what we're talking about today is bringing this stodgy old estate planning world into the Jetsons world, right? Into the future. Because here we are talking about estate planning where you can, you know, you don't have to pay $4,000 and travel an hour and a half. You, you know, it can be updated kind of regularly. And then I'm hearing you say we can use AI. to make the customer experience even easier. I mean, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to get the number of 60% of people that don't have state plan down into the teens, right? If we actually, if we actually do this thing right for clients, correct?

You're right. And I think Snug is on par with flying cars and floating cities. I think you're totally right there.

Yeah, I—

you're at the outset, you said that every client is individual, everybody has their own unique life. We have moved in a direction of allowing software to cover these unique cases, and then AI will only accelerate that process where everybody has a super bespoke plan and we can continue to cover more and more complex estates as that technology improves.

I love it. And like that one of a kind life is like the catchphrase, Vitus by Mike. The one-of-a-kind financial plan for your one-of-a-kind life. See that? But there are some basics, right, to protect people who are living that one-of-a-kind life. Estate planning is just one of them. And that's why we like to use the tool that we use with you guys.

What trends do you foresee in the estate planning industry over the next few years, Scott? So how, like, how is Snug positioned to adapt to these changes?

Yeah, so We think that, as I've already touched on, that estate planning to get that 60% number down into the teens, it needs to become more accessible. And we see the trend of financial advisors and financial professionals more broadly moving in this direction of becoming a one-stop shop or a more of a multifamily office model for their clients. And we are well positioned to help financial professionals do that. We have really flexible workflows again so that professionals can step in and support at whatever level of support the client, the individual client needs. And I see, as I already touched on, AI really allowing that to happen at scale. So I think that's going to be really where everything is going towards is that each individual will have less of a specialty, And be providing more and more comprehensive services to their clients.

I could not agree with that statement more. Of all the podcast stuff we've done, Scott, that statement you just made right there about how we are going to evolve and become more to our clients than we ever have before, that is what— that's what's going to disrupt this industry the most, right? The thing that's interesting about getting the numbers down in estate planning, you know, where people have estate plans, is we know that the large companies out there— I won't name their names, Edward Jones and Merrill Lynch, I just won't name their names, right? But they're not going to use this platform because they say all we do is investments, right? They are the dinosaurs in the financial planning space, right? There's a lot of good people that work at those firms. I'm not saying that, they really are. But like, they have what they consider to be their zone of genius, and it's not comprehensive.

Right.

It's very much, it's very much one, one angle, right? Just like you were referred out from your financial guy over to an attorney, right? That financial guy, you know, sitting there because he didn't want to be involved in the estate planning. But what our clients need is more people like our firm and others that you guys work with around the country to be able to bring things that are not accessible to our clients.

Right?

That's what Snug does. And so, uh, uh, Scott, I mean, I appreciate you being here with us today because Snug is a tool that we use with everybody. Um, it's so like, if there's other financial advisors out there who want to get in contact with you guys, how do they do that?

Yeah, I would just tell everybody to visit our website at getsnug.com, and they can sign up for a free account to check out the software. They can book time with a member of our team to go through how we can integrate it with their business model. Uh, and then the last thing I want to say is thank you so much for having me on the podcast. This has been a real pleasure, uh, and I always love just nerding out on this stuff.

Well, I would tell you, man, you know, we don't often see people who innovate like you guys have, right? Because it's, it's, uh, the estate planning world is littered with, you know, 3-piece suits and it's an old— I mean, people think it's just, it's old, it's what I do when I'm getting ready to die. But like, it has evolved so much that it's really about protection, right? Even for a 20-year-old or a 30-year-old, uh, they need an estate plan just as much as a 50 and a 60 or an 80-year-old does because You know, there's things that they want to be able to protect in case the worst happens, right? Their kids, what they've accomplished, right? The wealth they've accumulated, right? They need it just as much. And what we need to do is make sure everybody understands that. We need to be getting that message out to people. So, you know, we're so excited to have you guys as one of the tools we use to be able to help people with that.

Well, I really appreciate that, Mike. And yes, Estate planning does not need to be intimidating. It does not need to be a room full of 3-piece suits and stodgy old folks. This can be for everybody and should be for everybody.

Exactly right.

All right. Thanks, guys, so much. So, Mike, how do people get in touch with you?

It's Ideas by Mike. So, www.ideasbymike.com. So, www.ideasbymike.com. Instagram @ideasbymike, YouTube @ideasbymike, or just Google Mike Milligan, CFP, and you'd You'd be surprised, there's 5 pages of me out there. So in order for our clients, our prospects, right, to get Snug, it's just, it's just scheduling a consultation with us. You know, a lot of times on the podcast we don't ask for that, right? We just tell you how to find us. But literally on the website, you could schedule a time with us. This is, this is getting people's estate plan in place is a very personal thing to me. It's not just, you know, checking a box. It's, uh, to me it is that ultimate love letter that when you do pass away or you're no longer able to say stuff, that I cared about you enough that I want to make the end of my life very easy for you. And that's what a good estate plan would really do. The great thing about Snug is inside of their, uh, inside of their platform that you have access to when you— when we work together with them, Is you can actually write a letter to your family that's housed on their site so that when they get access to that, when you pass away, it is what they see. They see your thoughts, how you feel about them, how much you cared about them to be able to do that. And that's just the human element of the estate planning piece that we like to bring to the forefront. So at Ideas by Mike, we're committed to this. We're committed to the estate planning process and getting more people just like Snug We're committed to getting more people with documents in their hands, so if something happens, they're taken care of.

All right. Well, thank you to you both, and thank you for listening today. Please like, follow, and share this podcast with your friends. Until next time, I'm Wendy McConnell.

Thank you for tuning into Ideas by Mike, the podcast, the show where ideas turn into money. If you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure to click the follow button to stay up to date on future releases. For additional information on becoming a part of the Ideas by Mike community, check out our website at ideasbymike.com. Don't forget to take a look at the show notes, and for more financial insights, subscribe to the Ideas by Mike YouTube channel or visit the website to find one of the upcoming webinars. Also, connect on Instagram or Facebook @ideasbymike. Ideas by Mike is an LLC headquartered in Virginia with offices in 42 cities. The company owns an insurance agency registered in all states directly or through affiliate companies. Mike is an investment advisor representative with JB Wealth Advisors. Any financial planning information shared on the show should not be construed as financial advice for you personally. For your one-page financial plan, please reach out to Ideas by Mike through the website. The The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Ideas by Mike. The content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investment advice. Any financial planning information shared on the show should not be construed as financial advice for you personally. For your one-page financial plan, please reach out to Ideas by Mike through the website.