Trust & Will Launches 2025 Estate Planning Report in San Diego, Spotlighting Digital Asset Trusts and Next-Gen Tax Strategies

# Trust & Will Launches 2025 Estate Planning Report in San Diego, Spotlighting Digital Asset Trusts and Next-Gen Tax Strategies

Introduction

Estate planning, once a paper-heavy and highly localized service, is undergoing rapid transformation in the digital era. As people’s assets and lives increasingly shift online, so too must the tools and strategies safeguarding their legacies. Reflecting this evolution, Trust & Will, a San Diego-based leader in online estate planning, has released its comprehensive 2025 Estate Planning Report. Unveiled in a February 25, 2025 press release, the report presents an in-depth analysis of the industry’s pivot toward digital-first trusts, online notary services, and advanced tax-minimization strategies.

The report zeroes in on three critical areas: accelerating adoption of digital asset trusts, the rise of secure online notary platforms, and cutting-edge methods to reduce beneficiaries’ tax burdens. For estate planning professionals and everyday Americans alike, these trends offer new opportunities—and pose fresh challenges—for protecting legacies in a digital landscape.

The Shift Toward Digital-First Estate Planning

Traditional estate planning has long been associated with brick-and-mortar offices, stacks of paperwork, and in-person consultations. Over the past few years, however, digital platforms have transformed this landscape. According to Trust & Will’s 2025 Estate Planning Report, more than 60% of newly created trusts in 2024 utilized exclusively digital services—a 23% increase from the previous year.

This shift is driven largely by consumer demand for convenience and transparency. Today’s digital platforms provide 24/7 accessibility, allowing users to initiate, review, and update estate documents from anywhere with an internet connection. The report further observes that online will and trust creation increased by 38% year-over-year, underscoring a clear appetite for tech-enhanced solutions.

Reduced paperwork, integrated document storage, and faster approval workflows characterize these services. Notably, digital-first services have cut average estate plan preparation times by 40% and reduced common administrative errors, streamlining the process for both clients and attorneys. This digital transformation democratizes estate planning, opening doors for younger generations and those previously underserved by traditional channels.

Digital Asset Trusts: Protecting Online Legacies

With the proliferation of digital assets—ranging from cryptocurrency holdings to social media accounts and cloud-stored intellectual property—protecting one's online legacy has become essential. The 2025 report spotlights digital asset trusts as a defining trend, noting that one in three new estate plans now includes explicit provisions for digital property.

Digital asset trusts are specialized legal structures that authorize trustees to manage and transfer digital property according to the decedent’s wishes. These might include:

• Cryptocurrency and NFTs: Bitcoin, Ethereum, non-fungible tokens, and other blockchain assets.
• Online business accounts: E-commerce platforms, digital marketplaces, or content monetization channels.
• Social media and email: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Gmail, each with unique policies regarding account legacy access.
• Digital files and cloud storage: Photos, videos, software licenses, and journals stored in platforms like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Including digital assets in an estate plan typically involves: (1) making a thorough inventory of all digital holdings, (2) granting explicit powers to fiduciaries or trustees to access and manage these assets, and (3) securely documenting logins or access pathways—often with password managers integrated into estate files.

The report notes a 47% rise in demand for digital asset trust services in 2024, driven by growing public awareness of digital property’s value and vulnerabilities. Without these measures, valuable or sentimental digital items may become inaccessible or lost after death, highlighting the importance of proactive planning.

Online Notary Services: Security and Convenience

The notarization of documents—long a cornerstone in estate planning—has historically required signatories and witnesses to appear together before a notary public. Now, technological innovation is disrupting this standard. Trust & Will’s report details that 54% of all notarized estate documents in 2024 were completed fully online, leveraging advancements in e-signatures and video authentication.

Online notary services work by connecting users with state-commissioned notaries via secure video calls, during which documents are reviewed and signed electronically. A typical workflow includes identity verification (using biometrics, government IDs, and knowledge-based authentication), real-time audio-video communication, and digital certificate issuance. Many states have updated legal frameworks to support Remote Online Notarization (RON), ensuring these digital documents have the same legal standing as their paper counterparts.

Security remains paramount. The report outlines multi-factor authentication procedures, blockchain-backed audit trails, and secure e-vaults for document storage. These controls sharply reduce fraud risk; for example, digital notarization has cut fraudulent estate document incidents by 33% compared to traditional methods, according to the report.

Case studies in the report highlight efficiency gains, such as a San Diego family who finalized their multi-generational trust in under 48 hours using end-to-end online legal services—once an impossible timeline using paper workflows.

Next-Gen Tax Minimization Strategies

As estate values grow and financial instruments become more complex, minimizing tax liabilities is a core concern. The 2025 report synthesizes next-generation approaches tailored to changing tax laws and digital record-keeping.

Key strategies featured include:

• Annual and lifetime gifting: Leveraging increased federal gift exclusion limits, families transferred over $8.2 billion in assets via strategic gifting in 2024, as per the report.
• Digital trust structures: Trusts designed to hold appreciating digital assets (such as cryptocurrency) enable more precise valuation, capital gains planning, and generation-skipping transfers.
• Charitable tech funds: The increasing use of donor-advised funds and digital platforms for charitable giving can reduce estate and income taxes simultaneously.

The report encourages using digital records and real-time asset valuations to enhance transparency and support advanced tax-planning techniques. A noteworthy scenario details a blended family who, by updating their estate plan online and exploiting digital trust options, reduced their projected estate tax liability by 18%—allowing more wealth to be passed to the next generation.

The San Diego Launch: Industry and Consumer Impacts

At the San Diego press event, Trust & Will CEO Cody Barbo emphasized, “Digital transformation isn’t just advancing the pace of estate planning—it’s expanding access, enhancing security, and allowing families to better protect their legacies.” Local legal professionals and technology entrepreneurs echoed this sentiment, highlighting San Diego’s position at the forefront of fintech-enabled estate solutions.

Attendees noted immediate impacts: more law firms integrating digital asset management modules into client onboarding, increased training around online notary laws, and robust partnerships with cybersecurity consultancies. Both consumers and professionals are now benefiting from faster turnaround times, lower costs, and reduced error rates.

Looking ahead, stakeholders anticipate that these trends will lead to greater personalization and inclusivity in estate planning, closing gaps for minority, immigrant, and younger populations who historically faced barriers to entry.

Conclusion

Trust & Will’s 2025 Estate Planning Report underscores an industry-wide pivot toward digital-first solutions, with particular advances in digital asset protection, online notarization, and next-gen tax planning. These developments signal a more accessible, efficient, and secure era for estate management—one that better reflects the realities of modern life.

Individuals and families are strongly encouraged to review their existing estate plans, adapt to digital innovations, and consult qualified professionals to maximize benefits. The full Estate Planning Report is available at [trustandwill.com/learn/2025-report-press-release](https://trustandwill.com/learn/2025-report-press-release), where detailed insights and actionable guidance await. As the digital age continues to reshape personal legacies, those who embrace these tools will be best positioned to safeguard their wishes for generations to come.