The Quarterback Model: How Financial Advisors Coordinate Estate Plans

An estate planning attorney drafts a revocable living trust for your client. The documents are thorough, the language is precise, and the signing ceremony feels like a milestone. Your client leaves the attorney’s office confident that everything is handled. Two years later, the client dies. The trust holds nothing. Every account is still titled in the client’s individual name. The brokerage statements show individual ownership. The IRA beneficiary form still names a deceased spouse from a previous marriage. The trust, for all its careful drafting, provides no benefit whatsoever. The assets pass through probate exactly as if the trust had never been created.

This is not a hypothetical. It is the most common estate planning failure in America, and it happens because the process lacks a coordinator. The attorney did the legal work. Nobody ensured the plan was actually implemented.

The Gap Between Documents and Results

Estate planning has a completion problem. According to the 2025 Trust & Will Estate Planning Report, the largest survey of its kind with 10,000 respondents, 55% of Americans have no estate documents at all. Only 31% have a will. Only 11% have a trust. But the statistic that matters most for advisors is not how many people lack documents. It is how many people who have documents still have a broken plan.

The failure points are predictable. Trusts go unfunded because no one follows up on retitling accounts. Beneficiary designations sit unchanged for decades because no one audits them. Wills written before a second marriage, a grandchild’s birth, or a move to a different state remain in file drawers while the client’s life moves forward without them. A 2024 Caring.com survey found that only 32% of American adults have a will, a figure that dropped to 24% in the 2025 update. Among those who do have estate planning documents, only 22% update their wills within the first five years of creating them.

These are not legal drafting failures. The documents themselves may be excellent. They are implementation failures, coordination failures, and maintenance failures. They are exactly the failures that a financial advisor is positioned to prevent.

What the Quarterback Actually Does

The quarterback model positions the financial advisor as the leader of the estate planning process without crossing into legal practice. The distinction matters: you do not draft wills, trusts, or powers of attorney. You do not give specific legal advice about which trust structure a client should use. What you do is ensure that the estate planning process happens, that it works, and that it stays current.

This plays out across six activities.

Identifying needs. You see your clients regularly. You know when they have a new grandchild, when they retire and relocate to a different state, when they sell a business, when a spouse is diagnosed with a serious illness. Each of these events is an estate planning trigger, and clients often do not recognize them as such. A client who just inherited $400,000 from a parent is thinking about what to do with the money. You are thinking about how this changes their estate tax exposure and whether their existing documents account for it.

Initiating conversations. Most clients will not bring up estate planning on their own. The topic involves mortality, family dynamics, and legal complexity. They are uncomfortable with it, they do not know what they do not know, and they assume that what they did ten years ago is still adequate. You bring it up. You ask: “When was the last time you reviewed your estate documents?” You ask: “If something happened tomorrow, who would pay your bills? Who would talk to your doctors?” These questions make the need concrete.

Assembling the team. Estate planning requires multiple professionals: an estate planning attorney, possibly a CPA for tax planning, a trust company for institutional trustee services, an insurance specialist if life insurance is part of the strategy. You know which professionals to bring in and at what stage. A young couple with simple needs does not require the same attorney as a business owner with a complex succession plan. You match the team to the situation.

Coordinating across professionals. This is where the quarterback role becomes irreplaceable. The attorney drafts documents based on what the client tells them in a single meeting. But you know the full financial picture. You know that the client’s brother, who the attorney might suggest as successor trustee, has struggled with addiction. You know that the client’s largest asset is a brokerage account with a beneficiary designation that conflicts with the trust terms. You know that the client owns rental property in a state with its own estate tax. You bring this context to the planning process, ensuring that the attorney, the CPA, and the trust company are all working from the same understanding of the client’s situation.

Tracking implementation. After the attorney meeting, documents get signed. Then what? Did the client retitle their brokerage accounts into the trust? Did they update the beneficiary designations on their retirement accounts? Did they record the new deed transferring the house into the trust? Did they actually sign the powers of attorney and distribute copies to the people who need them? This follow-through is where most estate plans break down, and it is where your involvement makes the greatest difference.

Maintaining the plan. An estate plan is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process. Documents must be reviewed after major life events and periodically regardless. A common guideline is every three to five years. Beneficiary designations must be audited. Trust funding must be verified whenever new accounts are opened. You are the professional with the ongoing relationship. The attorney met with the client once. You see them quarterly.

Why Not Just the Attorney?

This question comes up, and the answer matters for understanding the value you add.

Estate planning attorneys are excellent at what they do: understanding legal structures, drafting documents that accomplish specific goals, and navigating the interaction between federal and state law. What they typically do not do is maintain ongoing relationships with clients. An attorney drafts documents, the client signs them, and the engagement ends. The attorney does not call three months later to ask whether the trust has been funded. The attorney does not notice that the client opened a new brokerage account titled individually instead of in the trust’s name. The attorney does not know that the client’s daughter, named as power of attorney, moved to another country.

You see the complete financial picture. You see every account, every beneficiary designation, every titling decision. You see changes as they happen. And you see the client regularly, which means you can catch problems before they become permanent.

Consider the $124 trillion Great Wealth Transfer now underway. Over the next 25 years, baby boomers will transfer the largest accumulation of wealth in history to the next generation. The scale demands coordination that goes beyond legal drafting. It demands someone who understands the client’s full financial landscape, who monitors the plan over time, and who recognizes when changing circumstances require changes to the plan.

The Six Functions in Practice

Understanding the quarterback role conceptually is different from executing it in your practice. Here is what each function looks like when applied to real client situations.

The Asset Audit

The foundation of coordination is knowing what the client owns, how each asset is titled, which transfer mechanism applies, and whether the current arrangement matches the client’s intentions.

Every asset transfers at death through exactly one of three mechanisms: will and probate (for assets titled solely in the individual’s name), beneficiary designation (for retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities), or operation of law (for jointly titled property and trust assets). Most clients assume their will controls everything. It does not. For many clients, the will controls less than 20% of their wealth.

Consider Eleanor, age 75, a widow with three adult children and $1.5 million in assets. She wants everything divided equally. Her asset audit reveals:

Her $600,000 home is correctly titled in her revocable trust and will pass to the children equally through the trust terms. Her $400,000 brokerage account is titled jointly with her eldest daughter, added “for convenience” years ago. It passes entirely to the eldest daughter by operation of law. Her $350,000 IRA correctly names all three children as equal beneficiaries. Her $50,000 bank account has a payable-on-death designation to her youngest daughter “to pay final expenses.” Her $100,000 life insurance policy still names her deceased husband as beneficiary.

The actual distribution under current titling: the eldest daughter receives $717,000, the middle child receives $317,000, and the youngest receives $367,000. The life insurance proceeds go to the deceased husband’s estate. Eleanor’s equal-distribution intention produces dramatically unequal results.

The asset audit catches this. A five-column exercise (asset, title, transfer mechanism, beneficiary or co-owner, value) prevents more estate planning failures than any complex legal document.

Beneficiary Designation Coordination

Beneficiary designations are the most powerful and most dangerous transfer mechanism in estate planning. They override everything, including the will, including the trust. When they are correct, they provide fast, private, probate-free transfers. When they are wrong, they produce outcomes that cannot be undone after death.

The most common errors: designations that still name an ex-spouse from a marriage that ended decades ago. Designations that name a deceased person, forcing the account through a claims process. Designations that name only one child when the client has three. Designations that name “my estate” as beneficiary of a retirement account, pulling it into probate and potentially accelerating the tax burden under the SECURE Act’s 10-year distribution rule.

Your audit should cover every account with a beneficiary designation: IRAs, 401(k)s, life insurance, annuities, payable-on-death bank accounts, and transfer-on-death brokerage accounts. For each one, verify that the primary beneficiary is current, that a contingent beneficiary is named, and that the designation coordinates with the rest of the estate plan.

The Unfunded Trust Problem

Trust funding is where the quarterback role is most tangible. A revocable living trust avoids probate, provides privacy, and enables controlled distributions. But only for assets actually titled in the trust’s name. An unfunded trust is an empty container.

The funding process requires retitling accounts from the individual’s name to the trust’s name, recording new deeds transferring real estate into the trust, and updating account registrations. It is simple in concept but tedious in execution, and it is exactly the kind of follow-through that falls through the cracks when no one is tracking it.

Your checklist after trust creation: verify that real estate deeds have been recorded, brokerage accounts retitled, bank accounts retitled or given POD designations to the trust, and that the client understands that any new accounts opened in the future must also be titled in the trust’s name. Then verify again at the next review meeting.

Navigating the Professional Boundary

The quarterback leads the process without practicing law. The boundary is clear in principle and occasionally ambiguous in practice. Here is the practical distinction.

You can explain how different transfer mechanisms work. You cannot recommend which mechanism a client should use for a specific asset. You can explain that a revocable living trust avoids probate and an irrevocable life insurance trust can remove life insurance proceeds from the taxable estate. You cannot recommend which trust a client should create. You can explain that the federal estate tax exemption is $15 million per person in 2026, permanently set under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and that state estate taxes apply at much lower thresholds in many states. You cannot advise on specific tax planning strategies.

The guideline: education is yours; advice is the attorney’s. When a client asks “Should I set up a revocable living trust or an irrevocable trust?”, your response is not to pick one. Your response is: “Those are two very different tools for different purposes. Let’s get you in front of an estate planning attorney who can evaluate which makes sense for your situation.” You explain concepts. You do not prescribe solutions.

This is not a limitation. It is the foundation of effective coordination. The attorney trusts you because you respect the boundary. The client trusts you because you are honest about what falls outside your scope. That trust is what makes the quarterback model work.

The Tax Awareness Layer

The quarterback does not need to be a tax specialist. But the quarterback does need to understand enough about transfer taxes to recognize when a client’s situation requires specialist attention and to frame estate planning conversations accurately.

For most clients, the federal estate tax is not a factor. The 2026 exemption of $15 million per individual ($30 million for married couples) means that fewer than 0.2% of estates will face federal estate tax. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made these elevated exemptions permanent and indexed to inflation, removing the sunset uncertainty that drove urgent planning for the past several years.

But “most” is not “all.” Clients with significant assets, expected inheritances, life insurance proceeds, or business interests may still face exposure. And state-level taxes are a different calculation entirely. A dozen states plus the District of Columbia impose their own estate or inheritance taxes, often at thresholds far below the federal exemption. A client with a $5 million estate faces zero federal tax but could face significant state tax depending on where they live. A client who lives in a no-tax state but owns a vacation home in a state with an estate tax may have exposure on that property alone.

Your role is to ask the right questions: “Do you live in or own property in a state with its own estate tax?” “Has your net worth changed significantly since your documents were drafted?” “Do you expect to receive a large inheritance?” If the answers suggest potential exposure, you bring in the tax specialist. The quarterback recognizes the trigger. The specialist designs the play.

When Plans Go Stale

Estate plans decay over time. A will drafted 15 years ago may name an executor who has since died, reference assets the client no longer owns, or omit grandchildren born after execution. A trust created when the federal exemption was $1 million may contain complex tax planning provisions that are unnecessary now that the exemption exceeds $15 million.

The triggers that should prompt a review are predictable: marriage, divorce, birth, death, significant changes in net worth, relocation to a different state, retirement, the sale or acquisition of a business, and changes in tax law. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act itself is a trigger. Clients with estate plans designed around the possibility that exemptions would sunset to $7 million should review whether those plans still make sense in a world where $15 million is permanent.

Your periodic review should cover five questions: Have any of the named fiduciaries (executor, trustee, power of attorney agent, health care proxy) become unable or unwilling to serve? Have beneficiary designations been updated to reflect current intentions? Is the trust funded with all current assets? Have there been life events that change the plan’s assumptions? Have changes in tax law made any provisions obsolete?

A plan that answered every question correctly five years ago may answer several incorrectly today. The quarterback’s ongoing relationship with the client is what catches the drift.

The Client Conversation

Bringing up estate planning requires sensitivity and directness in equal measure. Clients avoid the topic because it involves mortality, because they assume their current arrangements are adequate, and because the legal complexity feels intimidating.

The most effective opening is not “Have you done your estate planning?” It is a specific, concrete question tied to something the client cares about. “If something happened tomorrow and you couldn’t make decisions, who would pay your bills? Who would talk to your doctors?” frames incapacity planning in terms the client immediately feels. “When was the last time you checked who’s listed as beneficiary on your IRA?” connects to a specific, actionable item. “Your daughter just had a baby. Have you thought about who would raise her if something happened to both you and your son-in-law?” connects estate planning to a life event the client is already thinking about.

Once the conversation begins, your role is to educate without overwhelming. Explain the four core goals: transferring assets according to wishes, minimizing taxes where they apply, preparing for incapacity, and protecting family members. Explain that estate planning is not mainly about taxes for most people. Explain that having documents is not the same as having a functioning plan. Then offer to help: “I can review your beneficiary designations and account titling to make sure everything coordinates. If we find gaps, I’ll connect you with an estate planning attorney who can help.”

This is the demonstrate-then-invite pattern applied to practice development. You demonstrate expertise by identifying real problems. The invitation to address them follows naturally.

The Advisor’s Edge

The data and frameworks in this article are available to any financial professional who looks for them. What separates advisors who add genuine value in estate planning from those who simply refer clients to an attorney is the ability to coordinate the process: seeing the full financial picture, recognizing when documents and reality have diverged, tracking implementation across multiple professionals and accounts, and maintaining the plan across years of changing circumstances.

These coordination skills are the core of the quarterback model, and they are exactly what the Certified Estate and Trust Specialist™ (CES™) designation develops. The CES program builds systematic competence across estate planning documents, transfer mechanisms, tax frameworks, trust structures, and professional coordination, the complete toolkit for the advisor who wants to lead the estate planning conversation rather than simply hand it off.

For a related perspective on how transfer mechanisms determine who actually inherits, see Understanding Property Ownership and Transfer Mechanisms.

Sources and Notes: Estate planning statistics from the 2025 Trust & Will Estate Planning Report (10,000 respondents, January 2025), the 2024 Caring.com annual wills survey, and the Pew Research Center (September 2025). Great Wealth Transfer projections from Cerulli Associates and the Federal Reserve. Federal estate tax exemption for 2026 per the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (signed July 4, 2025), which permanently set the unified credit at $15 million per individual, indexed for inflation beginning 2027. State estate and inheritance tax information reflects the current landscape as of early 2026. This article is refreshed periodically as estate planning law and data evolve.