Astute Wheel launches estate planning component

Having previously launched the five other components of the Astute Wheel product, the owners and developers, Hans Egger, Michael Topper and Andrew Wardle, have spent the past 14 months working on the release of the estate planning aspect of the offering.

“Planners need to be dealing with estate planning within their practices in order to make sure their client is fully protected - life is short and this process is integral to complete the advice process,” Mr Egger said in a statement.

“But in the past, the process of preparing estate plans has not been efficient and some planners have either outsourced the task to their referral partners or put it in the too-hard basket.”

The tool allows advisers to work in conjunction with solicitors on preparing an estate plan, ultimately reducing time and costs for the end-client, Mr Egger told a media conference in Sydney on Friday.

“Financial planners are well positioned to do the estate planning groundwork because they have already collated all the financial information about their clients,” he said. “The Astute Wheel estate planning tools will help expedite the process and make it less expensive for clients.”

Mr Topper said the tool has already been taken up by 300 financial advisers across more than 40 dealer groups, with larger institutionally-backed licensees beginning to show interest.