By Jason Swensen, Deseret News | Posted – June 1, 2025 at 4:45 p.m.

OGDEN — You’ve likely heard that there are only two certainties in life.

One is taxes. You know the other.

Still, many are ignoring their own mortality — at least when it comes to estate planning.

Fewer than a third of Americans report having a will, according to the 2024 Wills and Estate Planning Study from Caring.com.

Procrastination is usually to blame for many not engaging in estate planning. Would-be planners just “haven’t gotten around to it,” according to the study.

Other common “no will/no trust for me” responses:

• “I don’t have enough assets to leave to anyone.”
• “I don’t know how to get a will or a living trust.”
• “It is too expensive to set up.”
• “It takes too long or is too complicated to set up.”

Weber State University’s development office hopes to steer around such common roadblocks to creating a will with its recently launched online estate planning tool. The Wills Planner tool is available to all — and it’s free.

WSU development coordinator Angie Anderson said the accessible, no-cost estate planning tool aims to lessen the challenges that families often face following the death of a loved one.

“We all hate having to think about it, but we want our families to be taken care of,” Anderson said. “So we want to give everybody the opportunity to put some thought into how they want their legacies to be remembered.”

Using Weber State’s estate planning tool

The online estate planning tool is designed to make crafting a will as simple as possible.

Site visitors can first download a free estate planning guide and then watch a series of brief tutorial videos with instructions on getting started, selecting individuals to help manage end-of-life legal and health care decisions, and how to select an estate plan that identifies people and charities that one might wish to have as beneficiaries.

Users can then set up an account and begin the registration process.

Users of the Weber State online tool have the option to name Weber State as a beneficiary in the document — but there’s no obligation.

“We’re really focused on empowering people to take that first step to plan for their future and their families,” Anderson said. “Weber wants to make that as easy as possible.”

Users of the tool can also work with WSU’s development office for additional assistance. The office works with an experienced advisory council made up of financial advisers, attorneys and other experts, according to WSU.

Ages 19 to 99: ‘Everybody needs a will’

The pandemic triggered an uptick in Americans’ preoccupation with their health and, yes, their mortality.

So it’s little surprise that there was a COVID-19-era surge in wills and trusts. But when the pandemic eased, Americans apparently focused attention on other matters.

But the realities surrounding the need for careful estate planning remain.

Experts say almost everyone should have an estate plan — but it’s absolutely vital for anyone with children or people who own a home. People who die without a will, according to a USA Today report, “can leave a thicket of probate problems” for loved ones.

“If you are 19, if you are 99 — everybody needs a will,” said Erin Smith, director of estate planning at Edelman Financial Engines, a financial planning and investment advisory company.

Older Americans are more likely to have wills. Yet, even many of them don’t have one. According to Caring.com, 43% of adults over 55 had wills in 2024 — down from 46% in 2023 and 48% in 2020.

Many financial advisers recommend that Americans should have a will as part of a larger estate plan that dictates not just what happens to one’s assets after death but also who will manage one’s affairs in an emergency while still living, USA Today reported.

Someone who dies without a will might leave big questions unanswered: Who cares for a child? Who gets the family home? And some assets are tricky to divide among multiple heirs.

“People with children should probably have a will. People with minor children should probably have a will, just to determine who will take care of them,” Gal Wettstein, a senior research economist at the Center for Retirement Research, told USA Today.

In a will or trust, a person instructs how to distribute property and other assets upon their death. When someone dies without a will, the local courts take over.

Anyone with a comparatively simple estate — say, a spouse, a couple of children and a modest list of assets — might assume they don’t need a will.

But probate laws vary, and it can be hard to predict who gets what.

In Utah, if a resident dies without a will, the probate court will appoint a personal representative to take care of the estate of the decedent, according to SmartAsset.

The court then follows intestate succession laws to determine who inherits your property and how much of it they get.

Estate planning for digital assets

Aside from traditional estate planning such as wills, it’s also essential to have a plan for one’s digital assets — including passwords that unlock bank statements, social media accounts, digital photographs, video game assets and perhaps cryptocurrency.

As noted recently in the Deseret News: If you don’t plan how to pass that on before you die, it’s going to pass along with you.

Begin the process by giving your digital assets “their own afterlife.”

Here’s a few tips from estate planning experts Gerry W. Beyer and Kerri G. Nipp:

• Make tangible media backups. Put important digital materials on a thumb drive or copy them to a CD or DVD.
• Take inventory of assets — including account details, usernames, passwords and instructions for handling the accounts in case of disability or death. “Store this inventory carefully, considering options like a trusted person, encryption, a safety deposit box or an online password storage service,” they said.
• Consider storing photos and videos on a website that multiple family members or friends can access immediately.
• Wills should state whether the fiduciary has access to digital assets.
• Consider putting digital assets in a revocable trust, “which may not become part of the public record and is easier to amend than a will.” You don’t want to redo paperwork with every password change.
• There are online afterlife companies that can help plan for digital assets.
• There are also businesses that will manage one’s passwords securely so they only have to keep track of one. Guard that one carefully.