Living Trust and Annuity Script

OK, now would you like your spouse to be the beneficiary or your living trust?  (If they say “we don’t have a living trust”, say)  You don’t have a living trust, interesting.  (Just move on with the application and wait until you get done.  Then when you finish everything and you have the check, say…)

You mentioned earlier that you don’t have a living trust; do you know what one is or does?  Well it is kind of like a will but it keeps your estate out of probate.  You see when you and your wife pass away all your assets will go through probate.  Probate is basically when the state of California comes in and legally says, “OK, your daughter gets this and your son gets that etc.”  And to do that, they charge thousands of dollars to your estate and that’s not even counting your federal estate taxes you have to pay that will take up half of your estate in taxes.  We call them your exit fees.

A living trust passes all your assets on to your children without any government intervention.  The way this is possible is because you re-title all your assets in the name of the trust which would be “The Hoke Family living trust.”  A trust doesn’t have a heartbeat, a pulse or the ability to die.  So this new name lives on forever and so do all the assets you put into the trust.  You see it is a death of a name that triggers probate and estate taxes, but if there is no death of a name then there is no government intervention.

I don’t specialize in the estate planning part of it.  I specialize in the mortgage protection division.  But what I could do is give you a quick look of how much your probate and estate taxes would be (while you are saying this you are grabbing for your appraisal sheet.  See figure 10.2.)  It takes about two minutes.  And if you qualify then there is someone back at the office who can help you out if you have any more questions.

(Do the appraisal sheet; find out if they have any money to roll into an annuity.  You find that out when they tell you if they have any money in CDs, mutual funds, money market accounts etc.  Show them their taxes and probate fees on the back side of the paper.)  The #1 reason why people don’t end up getting a trust is because they are so expensive.  Trusts cost between $3,200 and $4,500, but by being a Corebridge client you can qualify for huge discounts on these trusts; it would only cost you somewhere around ___________.  (If they have some money in a moveable account, don’t bring that up quite yet.  Bring your manager out with you and listen to how an annuity works so you can learn how to do it and do it on your own in the future.)