Estate Planning
Preserving Wealth, Protecting Legacies
We guide high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families through a disciplined process that helps preserve and distribute assets according to their intentions. This approach is designed to provide clarity for even the most complex financial situations.
Adaptive Planning
We view estate planning not as a single task, but as an ongoing strategy. A well-structured plan should be flexible, designed to adapt as laws evolve, family circumstances change, and your financial situation grows.
Proactive Guidance
Our role is to help you anticipate and prepare for the future. We provide ongoing reviews and guidance, helping to adapt your estate plan to support the preservation of your legacy for generations to come.
Why Estate Planning Matters for Affluent Families
Without a well-designed estate plan, complex wealth can face risks like unnecessary taxes and legal disputes. Proactive planning for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families provides the clarity to let your intentions, not default laws, shape your legacy. Important considerations for affluent families often include:
Tax exposure
Estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes can erode wealth quickly if not planned for strategically.
Family dynamics
Unequal distributions, blended families, or lack of communication often lead to disputes that undermine both financial and emotional legacies.
Philanthropic goals
Charitable giving, when not structured properly, may fall short of intended impact or tax efficiency.
Business succession
Without a clear plan, family-owned businesses can falter in the transition from one generation to the next.
Our Collaborative Approach to Estate Planning
Estate planning is not static. Laws change, tax rates shift, and family circumstances evolve. We revisit your estate plan regularly to confirm that it continues to reflect your wishes and remains optimized in a shifting environment.
Every family is unique. Some focus on minimizing taxes, others on family harmony, and still others on building a philanthropic legacy. Our first step is to gain a full understanding of your values, your financial landscape, and your long-term goals.
We then work to outline the structures that will best protect and distribute your assets. This may include revocable and irrevocable trusts, family partnerships, charitable vehicles, or sophisticated transfer techniques.
We do not replace your attorney or CPA—we complement them. By serving as the central hub of your financial life, we ensure that your estate strategies are aligned with your investment strategy, tax planning, and overall wealth management plan.
Estate planning is not static. Laws change, tax rates shift, and family circumstances evolve. We revisit your estate plan regularly to confirm that it continues to reflect your wishes and remains optimized in a shifting environment.
Key Estate Planning Strategies
To achieve these goals, we employ a range of estate planning strategies designed to balance tax efficiency, asset protection, and family legacy.
The foundation of estate planning lies in wills and trusts. While a will provides instructions for the distribution of assets, trusts offer greater flexibility, control, and privacy. We help clients design trust structures tailored to their needs, such as revocable living trusts, dynasty trusts, and charitable remainder trusts.
Gifting strategies, whether outright or through vehicles such as family limited partnerships, can significantly reduce taxable estates while transferring wealth to future generations. We guide clients on annual gifting strategies, lifetime exemptions, and how to maximize transfers without jeopardizing financial security.
Philanthropy plays a central role in many estate plans. We help clients design charitable giving programs that reflect personal values while delivering maximum tax benefit. Tools may include donor-advised funds, private foundations, or charitable trusts.
For clients with closely held businesses, succession planning is critical. We help design strategies that ensure smooth leadership transitions, equitable treatment of heirs, and continuity of operations—all while mitigating estate taxes and liquidity challenges.
We view estate planning through a generational lens. Wealth can empower future generations if handled properly, but unmanaged inheritances often have the opposite effect. We work with families to build governance structures, educate heirs, and establish processes for thoughtful stewardship.
We integrate estate tax planning with investment management to ensure strategies are designed with both current and future tax laws in mind. From lifetime exemptions to advanced trust structures, we ensure your plan is built for maximum efficiency.
The Moran Wealth Management® Difference
Estate planning is not a one-size-fits-all exercise. Many advisors can help you draft documents, but few provide the holistic oversight that ensures those documents align with your entire financial life. Moran Wealth Management® differentiates itself in several ways:
Integration
We bridge the gap between attorneys, accountants, trustees, and family members, ensuring everyone works in concert.
Experience
With decades advising high-net-worth families, we anticipate challenges and opportunities before they arise.
Personalization
Every recommendation is designed specifically for your family’s structure, assets, and vision.
Education
We believe in empowering clients with knowledge, helping them understand the “why” behind every decision.
Continuity
As your family grows and your wealth evolves, we remain a steady partner, revisiting and refining your plan.
Building Your Lasting Legacy
Estate planning is a process for directing your wealth to support the people and causes you value most. We provide the technical precision and strategic guidance required to help support the preservation of your legacy for generations to come.