56% of Americans have no estate plan — here's the 10-minute fix that gets you started

Today's Tip: Preparing for an Estate Planning Meeting

Most people walk into their estate planning attorney's office completely unprepared… and then wonder why it costs so much.

Let me explain…

According to the Trust & Will 2026 Estate Planning Report, 56% of American adults have zero estate planning documents in place. No will. No trust. No power of attorney. Nothing.

And the biggest reason isn't money. It's not knowing where to start. The legal terms alone are enough to make you close the browser tab… pour-over will, revocable living trust, durable power of attorney, healthcare directive. It feels like a foreign language.

A friend of mine found a way through it. Her name is Ruth Nakamura — she's 64, a retired school nurse in Portland, Oregon. She and her husband Tom have two grown kids and four grandchildren. They knew they needed an estate plan. They'd been saying "we'll get to it" for over a decade.

The problem wasn't motivation. Ruth cares deeply about her family. The problem was that every time she tried to research estate planning, she got buried in terminology she didn't understand… and had no idea what questions to ask a lawyer.

Then her daughter suggested she try Claude — the free AI tool at claude.ai — to help her prepare for the meeting. Not to write the legal documents. Not to replace the attorney. Just to walk in informed instead of lost.

Ruth typed in a detailed prompt describing her situation — her age, her family, her home, her retirement savings, and the fact that she had an old will from 2006 that hadn't been touched since. She asked Claude to explain the key documents in plain English, give her questions to bring, and tell her what paperwork to gather.

What she got back surprised her. A clear, jargon-free breakdown of every document she'd need and why. A prioritized list of 10 questions for the attorney. A full checklist of financial records to bring along. All of it in language she could actually follow.

Her attorney later told her she was the most prepared first-time client he'd had in months. The meeting that was scheduled for 90 minutes? Done in under an hour. And because the lawyer spent less time explaining basics and more time doing the legal work that mattered… Ruth's final bill came in hundreds of dollars below the original estimate.

Here's the exact prompt she used…

When Ruth got the results back, she printed everything out. She highlighted the questions that mattered most to her — like who would make medical decisions for Tom if she couldn't, and how to keep the house out of probate for her kids.

She told me something I haven't forgotten… "For the first time, I didn't feel lost. I actually understood what the lawyer was talking about."

And that's the point. Estate planning isn't hard because the concepts are complicated. It's hard because nobody translates it into language normal people use… before you're sitting across from an attorney who bills by the hour.

Now, I know what you're thinking… "Should I trust AI to give me accurate legal information?"

That's a fair and important question. And the honest answer is… AI is excellent at explaining general legal concepts, listing common documents, and helping you think through the right questions. It pulls from enormous amounts of legal education material. But it doesn't know your county's specific probate rules, and it can't replace a licensed attorney who understands your exact circumstances.

That's exactly why this approach works so well. You're not asking AI to write your will. You're asking it to help you show up informed… so the expensive professional can focus on the work only they can do.

Here's what to do next. Go to claude.ai — it's free. Copy the prompt above. Fill in your details using rough numbers, not exact account balances. Print what comes back. And bring it to your meeting.

Even if your appointment is weeks away… doing this today takes about 10 minutes. And it could save you hundreds in billable time.

56% of Americans have no estate plan at all. If you've been putting it off because you didn't know where to start… now you do.

★ Quick Wins

Skill Builder: Getting AI to Cite Its Sources

Here's something that trips up a lot of people… they ask AI a question about something important — a tax rule, a legal requirement, a medical guideline — and they get a confident, detailed answer. But where did that answer come from?

The truth is, AI doesn't automatically tell you its sources. It delivers information in the same confident tone whether it's pulling from a federal statute… or filling in a gap with its best guess. And when the stakes are high — your estate plan, your taxes, your health — that's a problem.

The fix takes about 10 seconds. You add a few lines to the top of your prompt that tell the AI to name its sources, admit when it's unsure, and point you to official websites where you can verify the answer yourself.

Here's what that looks like. Instead of typing "What documents do I need for estate planning?"… you paste the prompt below first, then add your question at the bottom. The difference in the quality of the answer is huge.

This technique works for anything where accuracy matters… tax rules, insurance questions, medical guidelines, legal rights. Any time the stakes are higher than a dinner recipe, paste these four rules at the top of your prompt.

Save this prompt somewhere you'll find it. I keep mine in the Notes app on my phone under "AI Rules." Every time I ask AI something important, I paste it in first. It takes five extra seconds… and it turns a guess into a verifiable answer.