WSFS Bank Executive Highlights Critical Estate Planning Gaps for Families and Businesses

Jamie Hopkins, Executive Vice President and Chief Wealth Officer at WSFS Bank, identifies critical educational gaps in estate planning that affect both consumers and business owners. Many people fail to recognize how estate planning touches everyday life, overlooking strategic activities like account titling, beneficiary designations, powers of attorney, and health care directives. For business owners, common oversights include succession planning, tax strategy, digital assets, and liquidity planning. At Bryn Mawr Trust, the focus is on education first, helping clients understand available tools and their importance in protecting families and businesses.

Hopkins advises individuals looking to consolidate their financial picture to start by getting everything in one view, as scattered accounts across different institutions create risk and lack coordination. Simplification by reducing redundancy and overlap makes financial life easier to manage, and regular check-ins with a financial advisor ensure plans adapt to changing life goals and tax laws. Coordination across investments, estate plans, tax strategies, and insurance is crucial, and Bryn Mawr Trust's integrated strategy brings these elements together to help clients avoid gaps and feel more confident about their future.

For business owners and executives, Hopkins emphasizes starting succession planning early to avoid reactive approaches when retirement or sale intentions arise. Early planning allows for identifying future leaders, exploring tax-efficient transfer strategies, and building flexibility. At Bryn Mawr Trust, succession is viewed as a long-term process rather than a single event, protecting both the business and the family. Trusts are often overlooked due to societal discomfort with discussing death, but they provide essential protection for everyday families and business owners, avoiding probate's lengthy, costly, and public nature. Proper trust use can reduce taxes, secure succession planning, and facilitate generational wealth transfers aligned with long-term wishes.

Bryn Mawr Trust's unique approach lies in its coordinated framework, bringing financial advisory, legal, tax, and banking services under one roof to prevent clients from managing siloed professionals. This model, supported by a national trust charter and Delaware state charter, enables best-in-class trust services, including special needs and legacy trusts. For business owners in the Greater Delaware Valley, regional tax codes and credits, such as Delaware's research and development refundable credit structure, add local complexity to national challenges. A coordinated approach addressing liquidity needs, taxes, and workforce dynamics through trusts, succession plans, and integrated solutions helps preserve legacies and support growth, ensuring business continuity and regional thriving.