United Association of Plumbers Local 290 is offering members a new benefit. In March, the union partnered with Trust & Will, an online service for creating estate planning tools. As the name suggests, Trust & Will offers guided setups of wills and trusts. Wills typically direct where savings and other assets should go when a person dies, designate guardians for children and pets, and outline final arrangements like funerals and burials. Trusts are legal structures that hold a person’s assets for more streamlined distribution whan the person dies.
UA Local 290 business manager Paul Elder said he and previous business managers have witnessed families struggling to navigate the legal shambles after a loved one dies.
“The spouse has come in and they’ve done no estate planning, and they’re left to pick up the pieces. It goes into probate, and it’s just awful,” Elder said.
Trust and Will is essentially “a TurboTax for estate planning,” founder and CEO Cody Barbo told the Labor Press.
Creating a will or trust often involves hiring an attorney and can cost upwards of $3,000. Trust & Will charges individuals $200 for a will and $500 for a trust, but UA Local 290 is covering that cost for members for at least the next two years.
The program is fully online, so members can complete their estate planning on their own schedule and not have to take time off work to meet with an attorney.
Barbo said Trust & Will can be particularly valuable for union members and construction workers. Construction trades have high rates of workplace fatalities, so it’s important to prepare for the worst case scenario.
Good retirement benefits are a key benefit for most union trades.
“At the time of retirement, they’ve spent all this time building up a retirement fund for their family in their assets and legacy. But the estate plan really is the document set that basically captures it all, makes it easy to pass it along to next of kin,” Barbo said.
