What Your Estate Could Absorb, and What You’re Willing to Leave
A guided estate risk assessment for Canadians
Most people who’ve done some estate planning have a rough sense that it’s fine. What they haven’t done is put two things next to each other: how much their estate could actually absorb if something went wrong, and how much they’re content to leave for other people to work out afterwards.
Those two answers are usually further apart than anyone expects. The Inherited Risk™ asks for both, in that order, shows you the gap, and gives you a printed page of questions to hand to whoever is best placed to answer them.
You do it yourself, at home. There are no right answers, and almost every question offers “I do not know” as a real answer rather than a gap.
Time: self-paced
Format: self-guided, interactive
Device: desktop, tablet, or mobile
Coverage: all provinces and territories except Quebec (see note below)
What this is
The Inherited Risk™ is a self-assessment that produces a picture of where your estate stands today, and a document you can hand to a professional.
It asks four things. What you’re willing to leave unsettled. What your plan has to deliver. Who’s involved. And what your estate could absorb if something went wrong. Then it puts the answers side by side.
The questions that open the tool ask what you’re comfortable leaving for other people to sort out, and they lock once you continue. That’s on purpose. If you answered them after seeing what your estate can and can’t absorb, you’d adjust them without meaning to, and comparing the two is the whole point. You can start over at any time if you want to change them.
Nothing is valued, verified or checked against a document. Every answer comes from you, so this is a picture of today rather than an audit, and nothing in it needs to be exact to be useful.
What’s covered
- What you’re willing to leave unsettled: cost, delay, disclosure, and how much you would settle in advance
- What your plan has to deliver, and which of your goals matter most
- Liquidity: what the estate holds, what it owes, and what could be reached without selling something
- Registered plans, beneficiary designations, and how they change what the estate owes
- Executor selection: whether they have agreed, where they live, what support they have, and whether they could find anything today
- Claim and challenge exposure: unequal shares, promises made, estrangement, dependants, and obligations from a separation agreement
- Administrative burden: digital access, where the original will is, and funeral wishes
- Blended families: spousal trusts, joint ownership, and whether a surviving spouse could change their own will afterwards
- Business and farm succession: agreements, valuation, a willing successor, and insurance funding
- Assets held outside your province, including US real estate and securities
- A dependant with a disability: trust structures, the effect on benefits, and trustee succession
- Province and territory-specific terminology and flags throughout, for all twelve common law jurisdictions
The last four appear only if your answers indicate they apply to you.
How it works
You’ll be asked where you live, then taken through five parts. Save your progress as you go using the Save Progress button, and save it again once you’re finished. Your answers only exist in the file you download, so if you close the page without saving, your work is gone. Nothing is sent anywhere or stored anywhere.
At the end, the tool generates your result: three measures with one picture that puts them side by side, a profile drawn from where they meet, and a read on whether the estate could pay what it owes without selling something. Your findings are ranked by what you could close most easily rather than by what sounds worst, so the ones near the top are usually a phone call. It also shows what would actually change if you acted on your top three, including a plain answer when nothing would move.
The last page is written to be handed over: the questions worth asking, grouped by who is best placed to answer them, starting with the conversation that matters most on your results.
What this is not
- legal advice or a substitute for a lawyer
- financial, tax, or investment advice
- a valuation, an audit, or a review of your documents
- a scored test you can pass or fail
The Inherited Risk™ is designed to show you where the gaps are and give you the right questions to take to someone qualified, not to answer them for you.
Who this is for
This tool is a good fit if you:
- have a will and some arrangements in place, and want to know whether they’d hold
- know there are decisions you’ve been putting off, and want to see what they cost
- want to arrive at a professional appointment with specific questions
- would rather find out now than have someone else find out later
- prefer a short honest read to another long checklist
You don’t need any documents, preparation, or prior knowledge to begin. Rough estimates are fine throughout.
A note on Quebec
The Inherited Risk™ covers all provinces and territories except Quebec.
Quebec’s civil law handles succession differently enough that several of the questions here would produce a misleading result rather than a useful one. Beneficiary designations on registered plans work differently, joint ownership doesn’t carry survivorship, notarial wills aren’t probated, and family patrimony is divided before the estate opens.
A version for Quebec would be a different tool, not a translation. Rather than add a warning to a result that would be wrong, it isn’t offered.
Access and purchase details
You will receive an email with:
- the private access page URL
- your password
- simple instructions to begin
Important: Because this is a digital experience delivered immediately and cannot be returned, all purchases are final.
Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice. Laws differ across provinces and territories and change over time. Confirm anything that matters with a qualified professional where you live.
