Olsen Law Group gives their clients an Action Plan when we do their estate planning

Attorney Tom Olsen: We do a free initial consult to talk about your estate planning, and that's any of the lawyers here at the Olsen Law Group will do that for you. When you come to meet with us, together we sit down, we come up with a plan, and then we're happy to quote you a flat fee for it. Everybody's a little bit different, but once we figure out together what we're going to do for you, we'll quote you a flat fee. Then we prepare for you, while you're here, we prepare for you an action plan. You walk out of here with an action plan.

It's a one-page piece of paper. At the top of it, it talks to you what Olson Law Group's going to do for you. At the bottom of it, most importantly, it says, "Okay, this is your homework. This is what you need to do." We prefer that you do it between now and when you sign your will in about 30 days. For example, that would be, go make all your bank accounts POD, payable on death of your kids.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Correct, yes. That it's important that you know that we do the legal documents to help you. One thing that we are not able to do, and of course, we want to help and we want to guide you, but you must make those changes at the financial institutions yourself. Whether that's checking, savings, investment, life insurance, IRAs, retirement accounts, all of those things, you must make sure that you are making that update. I think this is, Tom, another important thing to mention to the listeners because it's a common question.

Depending upon the financial institution and depending upon the type of account, they use different terms, but it all means the same. Beneficiary, payable on death, transfer on death, ITF, in trust for, it all means that you have named a person or persons or trust as a beneficiary on that account. Sometimes people get hung up on that they're different terms, but we always quickly let people know that they are one and the same.

Tom Olsen: Here at the Olsen Law Group, we're all about helping people to avoid probate, and to avoid probate on your bank accounts, you make them POD.

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