Opening an estate account with the bank shouldn’t come with unnecessary roadblocks
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I wanted to cry, but I knew I had to do something about this. My mom never allowed us to be bystanders.
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I am a mom, sister, daughter and aunt. I am a part of the sandwich generation caring for kids and parents simultaneously. I am also an investment manager and lead a group of professionals managing more than $4 billion of client money.
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Our mom and Oma passed away at the beginning of March. I was ready.
We had prepared several items: a power of attorney, a representation agreement, a do-not-resuscitate order, a bare trust and a will; everything I tell my clients to do, I had prepared for our mom.
The funeral home was excellent. Not only did they prepare me for confirming my mom’s body (so they didn’t cremate the wrong person), but they also included notifying the Canada Revenue Agency of my mom’s passing in their service offering. All done as advertised with professionalism and grace.
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My discussion with CRA was equally professional, kind and empathetic. The agent walked me through how to upload all the required documents and to register as my mom’s estate representative.
Then came my meeting with the bank to open an estate account.
I made an appointment with my mom’s banker. This banker knew my mom personally and knew me as the power of attorney while mom was alive. I had all the requisite documents: original will, proof of death and my ID. “We need approval from head office, you will need to come back to sign. Don’t call us, we will call you when we are ready,” I was told.
I didn’t leave. I stood my ground until they figured out how to open the account. It took three hours and a bit of me cheering them on to get to the finish line.
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Unfortunately, this happens every day to executors and executrixes across Canada. There aren’t enough people who train as trust and estate professionals, so banks and brokerage houses and financial custodians house their estate professionals in head offices where no one has to see the grieving family members.
Banks also give the estate account opening to the youngest or least experienced person because who wants to deal with a potential time bomb of a client who may start to cry at any moment?
We need to do better. We all hear the statistics of how women are the greatest beneficiaries of the biggest transfer of generational wealth. They are also increasingly becoming the people who sort out the estates of their parents and spouses.
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Why on earth would we make it extra hard for them to open accounts and, later, make distributions from the estates? Is it because our banking and investment industry knows that, on balance, women are less financially literate than men and might be more likely, in a grievous state, to just take the instructions from the financial institution at face value?
Well, I can tell you that even though I am a financial professional with lots of experience, I really felt like taking all my business from my current financial institution and moving it somewhere else. But guess what? I happen to know that it is the same everywhere.
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Here is my call to action for the leadership of the banks, trust companies, custodians and insurance firms:
1. Train your staff to open estate accounts.
2. Train them to say something such as, “I am sorry for your loss,” and then get on with helping them instead of telling them to hand over their documents and leave.
3. Figure out whether you can accept a wet signature or an electronic signature. The funniest request I received was, “Please sign the original and fax it to us.” What mortal today owns a fax machine? If they do, they probably last sent one in 1992.
Grieving is hard to do when you still have kids to manage, a job to attend to, a funeral to arrange and a parent’s belongings to distribute, sell or give away. We don’t need any unnecessary roadblocks.
Janine Guenther, CFA, CMT, is president at Vancouver-based Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel.
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