They Keep Saying They’ll Get to It, But Most Never Do.
Marcus and Keiko had been together for eleven years. They owned a home, had two kids in elementary school, and both worked full time. They were organized people. They budgeted. They had RESPs. Every so often, usually after hearing something on the news or after a friend mentioned a difficult probate situation, one of them would say, “We really should get our wills done.” The other would agree. Then the week would fill up again, and the conversation would quietly disappear.
They’re not unusual. They’re the majority.
A new study from IG Wealth Management, released in May 2026, surveyed 1,024 adult Canadians and found that 84 percent say having an estate plan is important. But only 41 percent actually have one. That’s not a knowledge gap. People know they need a plan. So what’s getting in the way?
The awareness is there. The follow-through is not.
When nearly everyone agrees that something matters and fewer than half have done it, the problem isn’t information. It’s resistance; the kind of resistance that builds up around anything that feels big, complicated, and uncomfortable all at the same time. Estate planning lives at the intersection of money, mortality, and family dynamics. That combination is uniquely good at making people look away.
There’s also a timing problem. Estate planning rarely feels urgent in the conventional sense. No deadline arrives. No one sends a reminder. Life simply continues, and the task waits.
The IG study also found a specific gap around charitable giving. Sixty-eight percent of Canadians believe charitable giving should be part of an estate plan. Fewer than a third have formally discussed that intention with an advisor or their family. They have the wish. They haven’t taken the step that would give their wish any legal authority.
What’s actually stopping people?
Most people who haven’t completed an estate plan aren’t uninformed. They’re stuck. When you take a deeper look at where the sticking point is, a few things tend to come up.
The first is not knowing where to start. People picture a lawyer’s office, a stack of documents, and a series of decisions they don’t feel equipped to make. They’re not sure what they actually need. They don’t know what questions to bring.
The second is not knowing what they want. It’s hard to book an appointment to discuss your wishes if you haven’t sorted out what your wishes are. Who raises your children if something happens to both of you? How do you want your assets divided? What happens to the business? These aren’t questions with obvious answers, and sitting down to formalize them when they’re still unresolved feels like walking into a test unprepared.
The third is avoidance. The topic involves thinking about your own death, or incapacity, or the possibility of a spouse dying first. Most people would rather not spend a weeknight on that.
None of these are unreasonable responses. They’re human responses. But they have consequences, and those consequences are rarely felt by the person who delayed. They’re felt by the family left to sort things out.
It’s not just a will.
Here’s something worth understanding: an estate plan isn’t just a will. It includes who manages your finances if you’re incapacitated. It includes your healthcare wishes and who speaks for you if you can’t. It includes beneficiary designations on registered accounts and insurance policies that pass completely outside your will. It includes how your executor is going to know what you own and where to find it.
Each of those areas has decisions attached to it. And most people haven’t thought them through in any structured way.
That’s not a criticism. It’s simply what happens when a topic feels overwhelming and there’s no clear place to begin.
What a real first step looks like.
The first step in estate planning isn’t booking a lawyer. It’s getting clear on what areas need your attention and what decisions each one actually requires.
A lawyer documents your choices and makes them legally binding. But they need you to show up with some sense of what you want to accomplish. If you haven’t done that thinking, you work it out in real time at billable rates, and you often still leave the appointment with things unresolved.
Two tools in the NEXsteps Planning Toolkit are built for exactly that preparatory stage. Both are jurisdiction-specific, covering all thirteen Canadian provinces and territories, so the guidance reflects the rules where you actually live.
Estate Architect™ is a comprehensive, self-guided tool that walks you through every major area of estate planning: wills and trusts, powers of attorney and incapacity planning, personal directives, beneficiary designations, executor roles and responsibilities, and tax considerations including deemed disposition and probate fees. Built-in Q&A guides you through the questions that tend to come up along the way. It works whether you haven’t started yet or have existing documents you’re not sure still fit your life. At the end, you’ll have a clear picture of where things stand and a more informed starting point for the conversations that matter.
The Will Blueprint™ goes deeper on the will itself. It takes you through twelve sections, from jurisdiction and personal information to executor selection, guardianship for minor children, asset overview, estate distribution, and specific wishes. As you work through it, the tool flags issues that need attention before you meet a lawyer. When you’re done, you can print or save a summary to bring to your appointment, a complete record of your answers and every flag the tool raised, so nothing gets missed at the table.
Neither tool replaces legal advice. They’re the preparation that makes the professional conversation actually worthwhile.
When Diane finally sat down before her appointment
She’d booked the lawyer meeting under pressure, knowing it was overdue. But she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know who she’d name as executor, hadn’t thought through what would happen to her condo, and had no idea her beneficiary designation on her RRSP was still her ex-husband’s name. She spent two evenings working through The Will Blueprint, section by section: her family situation, her assets, her executor, her estate distribution wishes. The tool flagged four issues she hadn’t considered, including the RRSP designation. She printed the summary and walked into the appointment with it in hand.
Based on the IG Wealth Management study, nearly 20 million Canadians are in the same place Marcus and Keiko are, waiting for the right moment, or the right prompt, or enough clarity to feel ready. The data confirms that being in the majority on this one isn’t where you want to be.
Getting clear on where you stand is a place to start. That part doesn’t require a lawyer’s appointment.
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Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.
