Organization Believes Estate Planning Benefits all of Society

Most people regard estate planning as being beneficial to only the members of the specific family involved, an organization formed more than half a century ago takes a much broader view.

“Estate planning, effectively done, is of paramount benefit to the community as a whole,” was one of the basic principles on which the National Association of Estate Planners and Council was formed in 1962, which formal incorporation as a nonprofit taking place the following year.

While not all estate planners belong to this longstanding organization, it’s a safe that the vast majority also holds that fundamental conviction.

The second founding principle for NAEPC, according to the website, is that the best approach to estate planning takes place through the formation of estate planning councils.

“The team approach will produce the best result,” the site states.

Support for this tenet may not be nearly as widespread as the way effective estate planning is of great value to society at large, but it’s something for people to consider when they decide to get their affairs in order.

“The initial concept for estate planning councils began with bank trust officers and life underwriters in the early 1930s,” the history section of the NAEPC site states. “In 1937 the Trust Division of the American Bankers Association and the National Association of Life Underwriters adopted Companion Resolutions which endorsed the establishment of Life Insurance-Trust Councils. A Guide for Forming Life Insurance – Trust and Estate Planning Councils was published jointly by these organizations between 1937 and 1959.”

This guide offered up six purposes for the estate planning council movement:

• Enabling life underwriters, trust officers, attorneys, and accountants to become better acquainted
• Developing mutual trust and understanding
• Learning to cooperate, confident that there is no competition among the groups
• Learning more about each others’ business
• Knowing experts in each others’ fields and having the confidence and trust to call on them for their services
• Giving, through this cooperation and study, much improved service to clients

A decision by a client to incorporate each of the four estate planning disciplines, which are attorney, accountant, insurance and financial planner and trust officer, may seem more expensive, but may also yield the best results.