#RichLifeLawyer Show 012: Estate Planning Document Storage Solutions

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Estate Planning Document Storage Solutions

Most estate planning attorneys focus on one thing — getting your documents created and getting you out of the door.

What they fail to realize is that most people leave their estate planning attorney’s office after executing their estate plan and immediately think “okay, now what am I supposed to do with this?”

The reason they think that is there is an interesting conundrum when it comes to your estate planning documents.

1. You want to keep them safe from theft, fire, and other forms of destruction;
2. You want to keep them accessible in case you need them.

For those reasons that rules out many of the normal storage places for important documents:

1. Safe deposit box;
2. Safe at home;

What happens is people end up keeping their documents in an office drawer some place, and no one else knows where those documents are.

Our Estate Planning Document Storage Solution

If you come to our office, things are different.

I want to make sure that you not only have the estate planning documents you need to protect yourself and your family, but that you understand and have the ability to use them if and when the need arises.

For that reason we’ve come up with a pretty cool system to store your important estate planning documents — and add some additional value at the same time.

In a nutshell, here’s what we do.

• We store and hold the documents for you in a safe, temperature controlled environment;
• We give you a number you can call that gets answered 24/7/365 (I call it the “bat phone” number, like the red phone that used to be in those old batman TV episodes);
• We give you instructions for giving that number out to the people in your life that need to know where your documents are;
• You don’t have to worry about keeping track of your estate planning documents, keeping them safe, or keeping them accessible;

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.

• In addition to that we give you a usb credit card storage device so you can have access to copies of your documents whenever you want; AND
• We give you a quarterly webinar to teach you something about wealth creation, legacy, wealth preservation, or living a rich life; AND
• We throw an annual client appreciation event for our members; AND
• We throw in one complimentary will codicil (amendment) per year.

You are probably thinking to yourself, “that’s great, and I could really use that, but that’s got to be pretty expensive.”

Wrong.

We offer all of that value, the codicil alone is worth $250, for only $9.95/month.

Isn’t that crazy?

It’s not crazy. What it is is a demonstration of our commitment to give you value above and beyond what average estate planning attorneys would give you.

Our goal isn’t to create some documents for you — it’s to create a lifelong relationship; it’s to help you create generational wealth; it’s to help you live a rich life.

We are constantly thinking about ways to give more value to our clients, and this is just one of the things we’ve got going on.

Thank you for listening. Talk to you soon.

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. Do you have kids? Have you completed guardianship paperwork? Have you done it correctly? Click here to find out what happens if you don’t do anything: Are you okay with a judge choosing the guardians of your children?

P.P.S. Do you own a business? Do you have a plan so the business, and your family, can survive if something happens to you? If not, click here to learn how simple it is to protect your business and your family from tragedy: 5 Ways to Protect Your Business from Catastrophic Failure.

P.P.P.S. Do you have no kids and think you don’t need an estate plan? Single and think a will is only for married couples. You couldn’t be more wrong. Click here to learn more: 5 reasons estate planning is a must have even if you don’t have kids.

Christopher Small is a Kirkland estate planning attorney who helps people get rich and live forever. He is also the owner of CMS Law Firm LLC.

Estate Planning Document Storage Solutions Transcript

Hey everybody this is Christopher Small and this is episode twelve of the Rich Life Lawyer Podcast. Hello. Welcome. I am super happy to be here I’ve been sick for a couple weeks. So it’s nice to be back to about ninety eight percent. I’m almost there and I’m excited, I’m fired up. I’m happy to be here talking today. We’re going to talk about estate planning document storage solutions and this is an interesting topic because you know what I found was that most of estate planning attorneys really focus on one thing when they, when you’re coming to your office and that is getting your documents created and getting it out the door. What they fail to realize is that most people leave their estate putting attorney’s office after executing their estate plan and immediately think, okay now what am I supposed to do with this.

You know, they’re not sure what to do their documents, right. Where you put them and the reason they think this if they talk to their attorney if they give them any. If their attorney gives an instruction about what to do because there’s an interesting conundrum when it comes to your estate planning documents. On one hand you want to keep them safe from theft, fire, and other forms of destruction because you need for example the original will for it to have an effect. You definitely don’t want people running around with your power of attorney that can be rather dangerous. So you want to keep these things secure. But on the other hand you want them to be accessible to your people in case you need them. You know for example if you were involved in a car accident, your assigned medical power of attorney needs to have a document to be able to carry out their duty.

Same with your regular power of attorney. You know the person that you’ve appointed to that position needs that document to be able to do the things that you have given them the power to do. So where do you keep these things? You know because this conundrum rules out a couple places that most people immediately think of. Number one would be a safe deposit box. Reason that’s no good is because unless you put someone else on that save deposit box. It’s actually to take a court order to get it opened if something happens to you. And that sort of defeats the entire purpose of having your estate plan put together. The other place a lot of people think about putting it is they’re safe at home. And this wouldn’t be too bad but again you’re going to have to give someone the combination to your safe and quite often that person that you would give the combination to think like say, spouse. Maybe a child, maybe something like that. Is often going to be spending a lot of time with you which means there’s a chance.

However big or small that they could be injured at the same time that you are. If that happens then who’s next to be able to access your documents. So that makes it super tough and because those solutions aren’t perfect what often happens is that people just keeping their documents. You know in an office drawer at their house or you know we’re just on the table somewhere you know just in some random door or in some filing cabinet. The downside to this is that A) they’re not safe and secure like you want and B) your people probably don’t know where those those documents are so when they need them. You know you just follow them away someplace nobody probably knows where those are. But if you come to our office things are different and that’s what I want to talk about today. It’s a potential estate planning document stored solution that you may not have thought of. When you come into to my office, you know I want to make sure that not will only have the estate planning documents you need to protect yourself and your family but that you understand and have the ability to use them if and when the need arises.

It’s pointless to have these things if you don’t know how to use them. For that reason we’ve come over the prequel system to store your important estate planning documents and add some additional value to you at the same time. So here’s what we do in a nutshell, this is how we put together our estate planning document storage system. Okay first, we stored hold the documents for you in a safe temperature controlled environment, right. Now, that helps you with the first problem, right. You want to keep them safe secure and you want them to be free from damage. Now the others, the part two of though is access. How do you get to these, to do that we give you a number that you can call that gets answered 24/7 365 which means all the time. I call it the bat phone and I used to watch these old old Batman episode, T.V. episodes back in the day and he had this red phone that whenever the police commissioner called the bat phone somebody would always answer and they would go and help.

And that’s what we’ve created, is a bat phone for our clients. We give, what we do then is we give you instructions so that you can give that number out to people in your life that need to know where your documents are. And that way if anything ever happens to you, they can have the bat number probably in their phone and they can just call us and we can make sure that you have access to all the documents that you need very very quickly. Now, this accomplishes all those goals where you don’t have to worry about keeping track of your estate planning documents. You don’t have to worry about keeping them safe and you don’t have to worry about keeping them accessible. Sounds pretty great right? But, that’s not all that we do which is sort of part of this program. Because I want to give more value. I love getting value to my clients. In addition to that, what we do is we give a USB credit card storage device. So it looks like a credit card but you kind of flip out it’s got a USB will dongle on it and we give that to you with copies of your documents so you can have access to those whenever you want or need them.

Some people, you know you want to look you’ve forgot what you said or you forgot what the documents say, you want to take a look at them, that will give you access to them. In addition to that, we give our clients a quarterly webinar to teach them something about wealth creation, legacy, wealth preservation, or living a rich life, right. These are all just estate planning solutions it’s really about accomplishing our big goal which is to help you get rich and live forever. I mean it will bring in guest speakers. We will speak on our own topics but the idea there really is to just give you an additional source of value. That’s not it. We also throw an annual client appreciation event for our members and it’s really just a way to say thank you, it’s a way to reconnect. You know I want this firm to have a bunch of lifetime clients. You know we want to create real relationships with our clients. And one of the best ways to do that is to break bread. You know have a cocktail, have a little bit of food, catch up, talk and that’s part of the reason I do that.

On top of that, last but not least what we do is we throw in one complimentary will codicil per year. Now codicil to your will is like in a minute. Okay so say you want to change the name of your guardian from Joe to Judy. A codicil can do that rather easily. What we do is we threw that in for complimentary for our members and now that’s what it is, right. Tons of value there and you probably think yourself that’s great and I could really use that service but it’s got to be pretty expensive and you would be wrong. Okay. The reason is that there’s strength in numbers when it comes to this stuff right. So we offer all that value, the cost of so a loan that I just talked about typically would charge anywhere from $200 to $250 for that. So we charge RR fee or a price for all that all together is only $9.95 a month. Crazy right? Crazy good price. It’s not crazy though and what it is, is a demonstration of my commitment to give you value above and beyond what average estate planning terms would give you.

You know, I don’t want to be an average estate planning attorney. I want our firm to be the best around. You know that means giving tremendous value, tremendous service, and creating strong relationships with our clients. You know our goal isn’t to create some doctrines for you, it’s to create lifelong relationships. It’s to help you create generational wealth. It’s to help you live a rich life. We’re constantly thinking about ways to give more value to our clients and this is just one of the things that we’ve got going on. I hope you enjoyed that. This maybe open your eyes to thinking about how you’re storing your documents, how you can actually use these documents if you need them so that you at least take steps to make sure that if something happens to you, your documents are accessible.

You know this is one solution. There may be other solutions out there that you can come up with or that other people come up with but we want to give you something that’s a no brainer. That’s super simple. You know cost less than two cups of coffee a month and provides a tremendous value to you over and above just document storage. So that’s it for today. Thanks listening and I will talk to you soon.

Originally published at cmslawfirm.com on June 27, 2016.