COLUMBUS, OHIO, USA – August 20, 2026 – Americans do not appear to need much convincing that estate planning matters. They may need help understanding what to do about it.
A national survey of 5,000 U.S. adults released in 2026 found that 73% of Americans consider estate planning personally important. Yet 56% reported having none of the five core estate planning documents measured in the survey.
For LegacyGuard Estate Planning, that disconnect raises a different question than the one the industry has traditionally asked. What if the problem is not convincing people to care? What if too many people simply do not know where to begin?
That idea is behind The Essential Guide to Estate Planning, a free educational resource developed by LegacyGuard to explain some of the most consequential parts of estate planning in language intended for people who have never studied trusts, probate or estate law.
The guide covers what happens during probate, how revocable living trusts work, what can happen when someone becomes incapacitated, common estate planning misconceptions and practical steps families can take to begin putting a plan in place.
But according to LegacyGuard Chief Product Officer Erik Halvorson, the larger objective is not merely to provide information. It is to reduce the friction that prevents people from acting on information they already know is important.
“The interesting thing about estate planning is that this does not appear to be primarily an awareness problem,” Halvorson said. “If nearly three quarters of people tell you something is important but a majority still have none of the core documents measured, there is clearly friction somewhere between intent and execution. From a product perspective, that is the problem you have to solve.”
For Halvorson, that meant approaching the guide less like a legal manual and more like a consumer product.
The team considered what questions arise first, where readers are most likely to become confused, which concepts require explanation before another concept can make sense and how much information a person actually needs before they can make a more informed decision.
“We did not start by asking how much information we could put into a guide,” Halvorson said. “We asked what information a person needs at each decision point to move forward with confidence. Those are two very different approaches. More information does not automatically create a better experience. Sometimes it creates more paralysis.”
An Industry Filled With Unfamiliar Language
Estate planning has its own vocabulary. Grantors. Trustees. Beneficiaries. Probate. Funding. Powers of attorney. Successor trustees. Incapacity provisions.
For professionals who work with those terms every day, they are routine. For someone encountering them for the first time, they can quickly become a reason to postpone the entire subject.
LegacyGuard believes that presents a product design challenge as much as an educational one.
“A good product should organize complexity for the customer rather than transfer that complexity to the customer,” Halvorson said. “You should not have to become an expert in an industry before you can confidently use what that industry provides. Estate planning should be no different.”
That philosophy shaped the structure of the guide. Instead of opening with a glossary of legal terms, it begins with situations people are more likely to recognize. What happens to a house? What happens to bank accounts? Who can manage things if someone becomes unable to do so personally? What does probate actually involve? How can a family make those decisions in advance instead of leaving them to be resolved during a crisis?
Only then does the guide move deeper into the mechanics of revocable living trusts and other parts of estate planning.
The goal, Halvorson said, was to build understanding sequentially.
“People make better decisions when they understand the context around the decision,” he said. “That is basic decision architecture. If someone does not understand the problem, presenting them with ten possible solutions does not help. You first have to establish what is happening, why it matters and what variables they should be thinking about.”
The Distance Between Intention and Action
The 2026 findings illustrate the challenge facing estate planning providers.
According to Trust & Will’s 2026 Estate Planning Report, 73% of respondents said estate planning was important to them, while 56% said they had none of the five documents measured by the survey.
Will ownership also declined from the prior year’s survey, while trust ownership increased.
The research does not establish a single reason Americans fail to complete their planning, but LegacyGuard sees the broader pattern as evidence that simply telling people they “need an estate plan” is not enough.
Consumers already hear that message. What many have not been given, the company argues, is an understandable path from awareness to action.
“Businesses sometimes make the mistake of treating consumer hesitation as a motivation problem,” Halvorson said. “But hesitation can also be an experience problem. If the process feels opaque, if the terminology is unfamiliar or if people cannot tell what applies to them, they delay. Reducing that uncertainty can be just as important as increasing awareness.”
That philosophy has influenced more than the guide.
LegacyGuard has increasingly emphasized education across its consumer experience, with explanations built around the practical consequences of estate planning decisions rather than legal terminology alone.
For Halvorson, education is not something that sits outside the product. It is part of the product.
“If a customer enters a process confused, every decision downstream becomes harder,” he said. “They have more questions, less confidence and more reasons to stop. Education reduces that friction. From a business standpoint, that improves the customer experience. From a family standpoint, it helps people make decisions they may have been postponing for years.”
Making Estate Planning Feel Like an Everyday Issue
Another obstacle may be the word “estate” itself. For some Americans, an estate can sound like something associated with considerable wealth.
In practice, estate planning can involve far more ordinary things. A home. A checking account. A small business. A retirement account. Family photographs. Personal belongings. Money someone is owed. Digital accounts. The people who depend on them.
LegacyGuard’s guide is written around that broader understanding of what people are actually trying to protect.
The company places particular emphasis on revocable living trusts, which can provide instructions for the management and eventual distribution of properly transferred assets while allowing the person creating the trust to retain control during their lifetime. Properly established and funded trusts can also allow trust assets to pass outside probate and provide a mechanism for asset management if the person who created the trust becomes incapacitated.
But the guide’s larger message is that estate planning is not simply about what someone owns. It is about reducing the number of unanswered questions that remain for everyone else.
“People tend to evaluate estate planning as a financial transaction because assets are involved,” Halvorson said. “But I think the better way to evaluate it is through risk and continuity. What happens if you are suddenly unavailable? Who has authority? Where does ownership go? What decisions have already been made? How much uncertainty have you removed for the people around you? Those are operational questions as much as financial ones.”
It is a perspective that reflects Halvorson’s role at LegacyGuard. As Chief Product Officer, his focus includes how consumers interact with the company’s services, where unnecessary complexity exists and how the overall estate planning experience can be made easier to understand and navigate.
The guide represents one piece of that effort.
A Different Starting Point
LegacyGuard does not expect a free guide to replace individualized estate planning advice. Estate planning laws and circumstances vary, and the right strategy for one household may not be appropriate for another.
Instead, the company sees the guide as something that should come earlier. Before documents. Before decisions. Before someone is sitting across from a professional and hearing unfamiliar terms for the first time.
“We are not trying to turn someone into an estate planning professional in 20 minutes,” Halvorson said. “We are trying to create an informed consumer. There is an enormous difference.”
An informed consumer, he said, can ask better questions. They can understand why ownership matters. They can recognize the difference between probate and nonprobate transfers. They can think more deliberately about incapacity, beneficiaries and control.
And perhaps most importantly, they can participate in the planning process instead of simply being carried through it.
“One of the basic principles of product development is that complexity behind the scenes should not become complexity for the customer,” Halvorson said. “Estate planning is inherently detailed. That does not mean the experience of learning about it has to be difficult. Our job is to absorb as much of that complexity as possible and give families clarity on the other side.”
That may ultimately be the larger bet behind LegacyGuard’s guide.
Americans may not need another reminder that estate planning is important. They may need someone to make it understandable enough to finally do something about it.
The Essential Guide to Estate Planning is available free from LegacyGuard Estate Planning at https://legacyguardep.com/.
About Us
LegacyGuard Estate Planning provides a guided approach to revocable living trust planning for individuals, families and business owners. The company focuses on making estate planning easier to understand through consumer education, a simplified planning experience and attorney backed estate planning documents designed for the client’s state and individual circumstances.
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Media ContactCompany Name: LegacyGuard Estate PlanningContact Person: Samantha HalvorsonEmail: Send EmailCountry: United StatesWebsite: https://legacyguardep.com/
