American Income Life: Will Kit (No Cost Benefit)
Amazing History and Track Record
- 25 years of free service to Americans and Canadians
- Hundreds of thousands of Free Legal Wills created
Easy to Use:
- Customize, download, print and email
- Return as often as you will for Free
- Optimized for smartphone - iOS and Android devices
Privacy:
- Privacy protected – the Will is not kept on our server
- We do not sell your information
- No advertising content on the website
..." (Start Your Free Legal Will – Enter Your Promo Code Below, n.d. )
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Relevant Material: "No-Cost Products
American Income Life offers a variety of no-cost products to help provide valuable protection for you and your family.
Legacy Will Kit®
Help protect what you’ve built.
You built a blissful life: made your house a home, raised bright children, and connected with your neighbors and community. A life well-lived deserves a proper send-off.
American Income Life’s no-cost Legacy Will Kit® helps you decide who will take care of your family, leave all you’ve worked for to those you love, and secure your future wishes..." ("View No-Cost Products from American Income Life", n.d. )
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Relevant Material: "Why is estate planning important, and why does it seem like more people are talking about it now?
Not having a plan can cause problems down the road
- Over a third (35%) of US adults say they or someone they know have experienced familial conflict because of lack of estate planning.
- Probate expenses can cost up to 10% of a person’s estate, and can take months or even years to complete.
- Thirty-one percent (31%) of people say leaving loved ones without enough money is the most damaging result of a poorly planned estate strategy
The great wealth transfer is here
- In the next few decades, it’s estimated that $84.4 trillion worth of assets will be transferred through estates.
- Over four-fifths (83%) of investors are concerned that this mass transfer of assets will not go smoothly.
- Additionally, 28% of investors don’t have a wealth transfer plan in place. (USB Investor Watch)..
But most people have a will… right?
Actually, wrong. Despite a surge in planning sparked by the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people still lack any meaningful estate planning. The likelihood of having an estate plan is related to age and economic status, according to Vanilla’s research.
Older generations are more likely to have an estate plan
Here are the percentages of people in each generation who have a trust, will, or estate plan:
- Baby Boomers (57.5%)
- Silent Generation (54%)
- Gen X (53%)
- Millennials (43%)
- Gen Z (39%)
People above certain wealth thresholds are more likely to have an estate plan
- 77% of people with more than $1M of household net worth have an estate plan, will, or trust.
- Only 36% of people with household net worth of less than $1M have an estate plan, will, or trust.
- 90% of people with household net worth of over $25M have consulted with an estate planner, estate attorney, or family attorney.
- 16% of those with over $25M in household net worth have no estate plan, will, or trust. (Vanilla)
For more on documents like wills, check out Vanilla’s essential estate planning checklist here.
Estate planning can run in the family
- People whose parents have/had an estate plan are 2.5x more likely to have consulted with an estate planner, estate attorney, or family attorney regarding a trust or will.
- Almost half (45%) of people say they’re more likely to hire a financial advisor who had previously worked with their parents. (Vanilla)..
Why people do and don’t have wills
As with anything, the logic behind why people do or don’t have an estate plan varies.
Why people don’t have wills
According to a caring.com survey, only 32% of Americans have a will in place. Here are the top reasons people say they haven’t created one:
- 40% say they haven’t gotten around to it
- 33% feel they don’t have enough assets to leave to someone
- 13% say creating one would be too expensive
- 12% don’t know how to create a will
For many people, creating a will, trust, or estate plan begins with a catalyst event. Here are the events that influence people to start or revisit their estate plans:
- Change in personal health (29%)
- Death of a friend or relative (23%)
- Family change or conflict like marriage or divorce (10%)
- Retirement (10%)
- Change in personal financial circumstances (8%)
- Birth of a child (7%)
- Economic trends and predictions (3%)
- Moving to a different state (3%)
- Making a major purchase like a house (2%)
- Regulatory shifts like tax policy changes (2%)
- News of a celebrity death or estate controversy (2%)
" (Eubanks, 2024) - ****
- Relevant Material: "There appears to be divided opinion on the importance of Wills. There are a group who believe that a Will is a document to be written on one’s deathbed, as a final statement to explain who will receive the family heirlooms. Fortunately, most of us are wiser, and understand that a Will is something that everybody needs, no matter how old, or how wealthy. A Will is a vital part of your financial plan that is written when you are young, and updated throughout your lifetime.
“Fortunately I don’t need a Will yet”
A caller contacting LegalWills.ca on behalf of their mother
But statistics show that what we know about Wills, and what we actually do about Wills are two very different things. I think most of us were shocked to hear that Prince didn’t have a Will, while silently thinking that it’s something that we really need to get to ourselves.
Recent surveys have been quite consistent in putting the number of Canadians without a Will at just over half. A 2013 CIBC survey put the number at “about half”, while a 2012 LawPRO survey claimed that 56% of Canadians did not have a Will in place. Most recently, in 2014 the BC Notaries reported a number of 55% of British Columbians without a Will.
At LegalWills.ca we were interested in not only the number of people without a Will, but also the number of people with out-of-date Wills. This came from a social discussion on Wills that went something like this;...Our survey results show that 62 percent of Canadians do not have a Last Will and Testament. But interestingly, it also shows that nearly 12 percent have an out-of-date Will. So we are left with only a quarter of respondents in possession of a current Will that reflects their personal and financial situation.
There is an obvious criticism of this rather surprising result. We would expect younger people to not have a Will in place, and if a large number of 18-24 year olds did not have a Will, should we really be concerned?
But if we look at the data for Canadians over the age of 35, the results are still a little concerning. Just over one third had an up-to-date Will in place...You have to make some important decisions in your Will and these can take time. Appointing your Executor and the guardians for your children are not decisions to be taken lightly and you may need to consult with family and loved ones. But once you have a solid idea of the contents of your Will, the process for writing a Will is actually very simple. It takes much less time than filing your taxes.
Stepping through the process at LegalWills.ca takes about 20-30 minutes. We guide you through 9 sections related to your family situation and then prompt you through the distribution of your estate, making sure that every eventuality is taken care of. If you are involved in a common accident for example with your main beneficiary, there has to be a backup plan, and our service makes sure that this is included in your Will..." (Hewson, 2016)
References
1. (n.d.). View No-Cost Products from American Income Life. American Income Life Insurance Company. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://www.ailife.com/products/nocostestimate
2. (n.d.). Start Your Free Legal Will – Enter Your Promo Code Below. Canada Wills. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://www.canadawills.com/willkit/
3. Eubanks, M. (2024). 50 Estate Planning Statistics and Facts You Need to Know. Vanilla. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://www.justvanilla.com/blog/estate-planning-statistics-and-facts-you-need-to-know
4. Hewson, T. (2016, June 6). Number of Canadians without Wills significantly under-reported. Legal Wills Canada. Retrieved June 29, 2025, from https://www.legalwills.ca/blog/canadians-without-wills/
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