The C.Y.A. Plan

You can sign up for The C.Y.A. Plan at any time after completing your estate plan with Burch Law. However, the discount for updates benefit in The C.Y.A. Plan - PLUS and the complementary updates benefit in The C.Y.A. Plan - COMPLETE are reserved for members who join The C.Y.A. Plan within a year of their estate plan's completion with Burch Law, or who pay to update their plan at the time of joining. After that, they will be able to receive those benefits while a member of The C.Y.A. Plan. Otherwise, all returning clients would choose to add The C.Y.A. Plan purely to update their documents for free, which would put us out of business fast and there would be no more C.Y.A. Plan for anyone!

All your plan benefits will stay in place. At the end of your 3-year term, you may renew with one of our new subscription membership plans.

In the event of divorce, you agree to notify our office immediately and you will each have to pay for a separate C.Y.A. Plan membership.

In the event of remarriage, your new spouse will have to pay for their own separate C.Y.A. Plan membership.

Burch Law is licensed in Texas only. If you move outside of Texas, then we recommend you have your estate plan reviewed by an attorney in your new state. While documents are valid state to state, there may be state-specific laws you would want to have addressed. If you need referrals to attorneys in other states, please contact our office. The benefits of The C.Y.A. Plan will cease once you become a resident of another state, however, we will continue to offer emergency portal access for up to 60 days after you have moved.

Yes! We will review your estate plan and provide any recommendations. If you decide you want to make changes, then you can choose among our estate planning plan options. You can also add The C.Y.A. Plan.

If you don’t need to make changes to your current estate plan, then you can still sign up for any level of The C.Y.A. Plan, except the reduced fees for updates for the BAISC level or the complementary updates for the COMPLETE level would not be included without the cost of a Burch Law estate plan within a year of becoming a member of The C.Y.A. Plan.

Unless part of one of the top two C.Y.A. Plan memberships, future changes are charged at whatever the prevailing rates would be to advise and create the planning documents. Now that could be similar to the original fee, or it may be reduced if, say, you are just changing one or two documents. What often seems like minor changes, still ends up being about the same amount of work. One reason is there is still the meeting, advising, drafting, responding to drafts, changes or questions to drafts, prepping documents to sign, and then conducting the signing with notary and witnesses…basically the whole process. Also, there are legal changes that often need to happen as the law changes. Documents drafted with legal language that was valid at the time, will always be valid. But you have to update language if you are going to make changes, even if the changes are considered “minor”, because you cannot sign documents with any legal clauses that are not valid at the time it’s signed.

The bottom line is that even minor changes can still lead to major work, but also VALUE! It’s all still worth it, because most people, if they do this at all, typically only have to update a few times in their life. Compare that to something like homeowners insurance, which is a fee paid every single year regardless of whether you have a claim now or later. The difference is that an estate plan covers way more than your home and will cost way less to protect, even if you have to update it a few times.

With all of that said, that is one of the benefits to the top two tiers of The C.Y.A. Plan in that you not only get all the other benefits, but you can either have reduced or complementary updates to your plan.

The Choose Your Own Adventure Plan is the estate planning documents themselves. Your estate plan is the legal paperwork needed to ensure that your home and assets are distributed the way you want, the right people are going to be in charge, have designated who will take care of your kids, who can make medical and financial decisions for you if you are unable, or you have determined cremation or burial wishes. We have developed different levels of estate plans based on the degree of guidance clients want when setting up their Wills, trusts, and estate plan.

The C.Y.A. Plan (Cover Your Assets) is what happens after you get your estate plan in place. If you think of it like a road trip and your estate plan like the destination you have set, then The C.Y.A. Plan is like a turn-by-turn GPS for your loved ones to get to get there.

Even with a Will, trust, or estate plan in place, loved ones still feel very lost on where to start and what to do when something actually happens to you.

• Do they know where you even keep your Will or estate plan? Do they have copies or emergency access?
• Do they know where you keep other important paperwork? Who to contact?
• Do they know how your beneficiaries are set up on your life insurance, retirement, or investments?
• Do they know what bank accounts you have and whether they’d have instant access?
• Do they know how to get into your email or your online accounts?

The C.Y.A. Plan not only helps you create that roadmap, but we will help you keep your plan up to date with regular check-ins. There are three levels of membership in The C.Y.A. Plan, so you can decide how much on-going and support you would like once your estate plan is in place. There are even options for future updates to your plan to be at a 50% discount or completely free!

While you are choosing which estate plan works best for you, we encourage you to consider whether one of The C.Y.A. Plan memberships is for you. If you sign up when you get your estate plan, then the assistance will start immediately. You can always choose to sign up for The C.Y.A. Plan at any time after your estate plan is finished; just keep in mind that the discounted updates benefit of the Plus membership and the complementary updates benefit of the Complete membership are only available when you sign up within a year after you’ve completed your estate plan.