John Costello

Apr 24, 2024

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Vanilla Expands Document Creation to Offer a Complete, Modern Estate Planning Experience

New Vanilla Document Builder™️, announced at biannual Legacy Now event, delivers modern estate planning for all wealth levels.

Vanilla, a leading provider of innovative estate planning software, today announced an expanded set of features for Vanilla Document BuilderTM, the modern document creation engine within the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform. Financial advisors using Vanilla can now offer a compelling modern estate planning experience for clients across the wealth spectrum. New features include the ability to connect directly with legal experts, to get powers of attorney for adult children, and to tap into advanced tax planning options. These enhancements were unveiled at Legacy Now, Vanilla’s biannual virtual estate planning event attended by advisors, attorneys, and planners.

Vanilla introduced two new packages as part of the Vanilla Document Builder experience.  

The new Attorney Engagement package offers the ability to engage directly with licensed estate planning attorneys. This allows clients to work closely with top legal experts to ensure their estate documents are accurate and personalized to their unique situations, regardless of complexity. 

Vanilla also introduced a new Essentials document creation package that enables users to create Health Care Advance Directive (HCAD), Financial Power of Attorney (FPOA), and HIPAA disclosure documents for clients with adult children. This package provides families with the most up-to-date advance medical directive and estate planning documents that reflect state laws, ensuring they have the appropriate legal documents in place to reflect the wishes of the adult children in case of mental or physical incapacitation.

“We believe that everyone should be empowered to build a meaningful legacy, regardless of their level of wealth,” said Gene Farrell, CEO, Vanilla. “Vanilla is the only estate planning platform that supports every client at every level, and our latest innovations give advisors a complete estate platform spanning from planning to document creation ensuring their clients’ financial well-being.”

To offer consistent, high-quality collaboration with highly-pedigreed estate planning attorneys through the Attorney Engagement offering, Vanilla is launching with the modern law firm Accelerant Law PLLC. Accelerant attorneys will work directly with clients to build a plan that complements their family and financial situation. Upon completion of their documents, the client’s plan will automatically sync and be visualized within the Vanilla platform.

“We founded Accelerant Law with the goal of taking expertise from some of the top law firms in the country and delivering it to a broader range of clients. Essential to that mission is being able to leverage technology to deliver sophisticated planning at scale,” said Dana Foley, founder of and partner at Accelerant Law. “Vanilla is playing a critical role in our ability to take our expertise and deliver it to clients across the spectrum of wealth.”

Vanilla’s new packages build off of the Vanilla Document Builder release to general availability in January, which included the Basic Trust Package aimed at users who are still early in the process of wealth building. The Basic Trust Package provides a comprehensive solution for estate planning needs, including a Revocable Trust, Pour-Over Will, Certificate of Trust, Health Care Advance Directive, and Financial Power of Attorney. Not only are documents printed and shipped to the user for signing, but they are also integrated with their financials and plan visualizations in Vanilla.

In addition to the new Vanilla Document Builder packages, Vanilla has also introduced new billing options enabling advisors to choose whether their client pays or they pay and it is included as part of the firm’s fee structure. Fee based advisors now have the option to offer estate planning as a new revenue offering.

“Estate planning should be a seamless, integrated part of total wealth advisory services,” said Farrell. “Our goal is to empower advisors and attorneys with technology and education. At this spring’s Legacy Now, we not only showcased breakthrough product innovations, but brought together experts from across the wealth management industry to provide their insights gleaned from decades of experience at firms large and small.”

Register here to watch the Legacy Now event on demand, featuring actionable insights from sessions including a conversation between Vanilla founder Steve Lockshin and two-time NBA champion Shane Battier about planning for the future and building a legacy. 

For more information about Vanilla Document Builder and other solutions available as part of the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform, visit justvanilla.com.