Estate planning at Mercer Advisors
How to protect 10 Mercer Advisors accounts — manage beneficiaries online, fund a trust in-branch, and file claims through Mercer Advisors's Estate Planning / Wealth Strategy (documents prepared through the law firm Advanced Services Law Group, Inc.)
Mercer Advisors (main line)
Mercer Global Advisors Inc., 1200 17th Street, Suite 2000, Denver, CO 80202
Estate Planning / Wealth Strategy (documents prepared through the law firm Advanced Services Law Group, Inc.)
Mercer Global Advisors Inc., 1200 17th Street, Suite 2000, Denver, CO 80202
No Mercer Advisors claims department. Mercer holds no assets: the death claim is filed with the account custodian (Schwab, Fidelity, Raymond James, Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions, or National Advisors Trust Company for trust assets) or with the issuing insurance carrier. The advisory team coordinates.
Mercer Advisors has 10 investment accounts, each with different rules for what happens when the account holder dies. Of those, 9 can name a trust as beneficiary or be retitled into a trust. The right combination of beneficiary designations and trust ownership can keep the entire portfolio out of probate.
Mercer Advisors lets account holders update beneficiary designations online, in branch, by mail, and by phone, typically taking 15-30 minutes with your advisory team, plus the custodian's processing time. Trust funding is also available, allowing families to retitle brokerage accounts into a trust.
Mercer Advisors has documented procedures for both preparing accounts during your lifetime and handling claims when an account holder passes away.
Preparing your estate
Beneficiaries and trust funding
How to manage beneficiaries online, fund a trust in-branch, and review 10 account types at Mercer Advisors.
View details →When someone dies
Death claim process
Contact Mercer Advisors's Estate Planning / Wealth Strategy (documents prepared through the law firm Advanced Services Law Group, Inc.) to file a claim. 5-step process, 8 required documents, and contact information for survivors.
View details →For questions about any of these procedures, contact Mercer Advisors's Estate Planning / Wealth Strategy (documents prepared through the law firm Advanced Services Law Group, Inc.) at 1-888-920-1320.
Frequently asked questions
Mercer Advisors is not a law firm and, per its Form ADV, does not prepare estate planning documents itself. It offers attorney-led estate planning document preparation and other legal services through the law firm Advanced Services Law Group, Inc. ("ASLG"). The structure is unusual and worth understanding: Mercer's own Estate Planning Strategists separately act as Counsel with ASLG for the clients who engage ASLG, but the two firms have no common ownership, each has its own agreement and its own compensation arrangement, and a Mercer client is never obligated to use ASLG. Practically, that means a will, trust, financial power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney, healthcare directive, or HIPAA authorization "from Mercer" was actually executed under an ASLG engagement, and questions about the documents themselves are legal questions for that firm. Estate planning is included in the Mercer advisory fee at the Custom Wealth service level ($1 million+) and above; the Guided Investing option is investment management only and does not include it.
Mercer Advisors grows largely by acquiring other advisory firms, and its Form ADV addresses what happens to the clients who arrive that way. On fees: clients of an acquired firm generally remain on their existing fee schedule, billing calculation, and payment method until Mercer gives notice of a change. On investments: clients of an acquired firm can still be invested in a proprietary strategy that firm ran, and Mercer's general intention is to move them to a corresponding Mercer strategy at some point after the acquisition. On trusts specifically, one acquisition matters: Mercer acquired Kanaly Trust Company, and while it kept the asset management relationships, it transitioned the TRUST SERVICES portion of that business to National Advisors Trust Company (NATC) -- all trust powers and trust authority previously granted to Kanaly Trust transferred to NATC. So a trust that named Kanaly Trust Company as trustee is now administered through NATC, not by Mercer Advisors, and a successor trustee or beneficiary looking for that trust should be asking about NATC.
Sources
Data sourced from Mercer Advisors primary sources (13 pages reviewed). How we research.
Mercer Advisors (main line)
Mercer Global Advisors Inc., 1200 17th Street, Suite 2000, Denver, CO 80202
Estate Planning / Wealth Strategy (documents prepared through the law firm Advanced Services Law Group, Inc.)
Mercer Global Advisors Inc., 1200 17th Street, Suite 2000, Denver, CO 80202
No Mercer Advisors claims department. Mercer holds no assets: the death claim is filed with the account custodian (Schwab, Fidelity, Raymond James, Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions, or National Advisors Trust Company for trust assets) or with the issuing insurance carrier. The advisory team coordinates.
Estate planning articles
Learn how to protect your Mercer Advisors accounts and other assets with trusts, beneficiary designations, and estate planning documents.
