America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies Showcase - Flipbook - Page 18
2026 ADVISOR-FRIENDLY TRUST COMPANIES
10%
OF ADVISORS ACTIVELY
INCORPORATE TRUST
CAPABILITIES INTO THEIR
MARKETING AND CLIENT
COMMUNICATIONS.
Top-tier trust companies increasingly
provide white-label reporting and
communications that route through
the advisor and carry the advisor’s
branding. Clients may not know the
trust officer doesn’t work for you.
That’s precisely the point. Attorneys
and accountants who already have a
voice in your clients’ financial lives need
advisors to manage the investments.
You can play quarterback on the
accounts you introduce while the trust
company operates invisibly in the back
office, exactly where it belongs.
THE DECANTING OPTION: FIXING
TRUSTS THAT NEED UPDATING
One of the most practically valuable
developments in state trust law
over the past decade has been the
widespread adoption and expansion
of decanting statutes. Decanting is
the process of distributing assets from
one irrevocable trust into a new trust
with more favorable terms, effectively
allowing a trust to be updated when
circumstances change without requiring
court involvement or beneficiary
consent in most cases. South Dakota
has the most flexible decanting statute
in the country. Delaware’s 2025 Trust
Act included clarifications that make the
decanting process more administratively
streamlined. Most leading trust
jurisdictions now offer meaningful
decanting rights.
For advisors with clients who
established irrevocable trusts years
ago under different tax law, different
family circumstances, or simply with
less sophisticated drafting, decanting
offers a path to modernization. A trust
that was established in a high-tax state
and has accumulated significant assets
over decades may be eligible to move
its situs to a more favorable jurisdiction
through decanting into a new trust
governed by better law. This is not a
simple or automatic process, and it
requires experienced legal guidance,
but it is a genuine planning tool that
produces real outcomes for families
willing to engage with it.
INCORPORATING TRUST
SERVICES INTO YOUR PRACTICE
The most consistent finding across
advisor surveys is a gap between how
important trust planning is and how
rarely advisors initiate the conversation.
The technical knowledge exists. The
partner relationships are available.
What’s missing in most practices is
a systematic approach to identifying
which clients need this conversation
and when to have it.
Every book of business contains
a subset of clients for whom trust
planning is overdue:
• The client who built a business
over 30 years and hasn’t updated
their estate plan since a prior
administration.
• The recently widowed spouse
navigating an inheritance alone for the
first time.
• The entrepreneur approaching a
liquidity event with proceeds that
will push their estate well above any
reasonable exemption threshold.
• The couple in their 70s whose adult
children have never met the advisor
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and have no particular reason to feel
loyalty to them.
These clients are not waiting to be
asked. They are waiting for the right
advisor to ask. The advisor who gets
there first, who raises the conversation
before circumstances force it, is the one
who defines the relationship on their
own terms rather than on the terms of
whoever the heirs eventually choose.
BUILDING YOUR TRUST
COMPANY BENCH
The advisors who do this most
effectively don’t rely on a single trust
company relationship. They build a
small, deliberate bench of two or three
partners with complementary profiles.
One generalist relationship covers the
full spectrum: a well-capitalized platform
that can handle most account types,
multiple jurisdictions, and the standard
range of trust structures. One specialist
addresses specific client needs, whether
that’s particularly aggressive asset
protection requirements, substantial
alternative assets, complex blended
family situations, or cross-border
planning. And at least one relationship
with a company chartered in a leading
trust jurisdiction gives you access
to favorable perpetuities law, zero
state income tax, and strong creditor
protection statutes for the clients where
those features matter most.
Having that bench in place before you
need it is what separates advisors who
can move decisively when a moment
arrives from those who scramble for
referrals at the worst possible time.
When a client announces they’re selling
a business in sixty days and wants to
discuss estate planning for the proceeds,
the advisor with existing trust company
relationships is ready. The one who
needs to start interviewing partners is not.
