Program

The Certified Executor Advisor (CEA) designation program is an on-line curriculum designed to provide candidates with a practical level of knowledge covering all issues executors may face in the course of their duties. Empowering dialogue prior to death, with those who have both vested legal responsibilities and personal risk in managing the estate assets, creates significant planning opportunities.

Designed for the multiple professionals executors may turn to in the course of their duties, the CEA provides a high-level understanding of how each of the other CEA professions can assist executors with estate settlement, their testators with estate preparation, and ultimately, the heirs, with responsibly managing their inheritance.

Benefits for Families and Businesses:

IICEA provides executors and testators with a network of certified professionals; specialists in their own discipline with a broad knowledge of all related fields. CEAs have the skills to provide general direction, professional services within their capacity, and guidance – away from potential pitfalls and toward necessary relevant professional expertise. It’s a transformational approach to estate transfer.

Benefits for CEA Candidates:

Candidates benefit by learning practical elements important to executors, the most trusted and influential people in their testator parents’ lives. Executors’ vested interests, legal responsibilities and key relationships make them essential conduits in the estate transfer process. CEAs can engage in the critical discussions needed to uncover challenges and discover significant opportunities, such as how to:

• Demonstrate value to new clients, like accountants who may prepare multiple tax returns in estate situations, and show tax is not a DIY project
• Substantially and highly effectively increase Assets Under Management
• Add value, such as charitable gift planners who help create extraordinary legacies that can contribute to communities in perpetuity
• Significantly increase permanent life insurance to enhance estate liquidity
• Identify expertise, in law, trust, and corporate executor fields, which can often confuse average executors unsure of where to look for guidance
• Tap into a stunningly efficient referral process and networking team

Cross-Border Referrals

If working with Canadian clients, or U.S. clients holding Canadian property, connect with a network of over 1,400 CEAs serving clients from coast to coast, at https://cicea.ca/en/find-a-cea

The benefits of the CEA designation program vary by profession, but some are shared by all, such as:

• helping executors and testators in a vastly wider spectrum
• presenting yourself with an instantly recognizable designation
• your professional profile on the National Find A CEA Directory
• networking opportunities, in your community and across the USA
• co-operative events, marketing, and initiatives with other CEAs
• ongoing access to the fully searchable curriculum
• ongoing access to the 1,000-term glossary, resources, tools and proprietary executor-focused calculators

Banks and Credit Unions

Perhaps more than any of the CEA professions, banks and credit unions are uniquely positioned to engage with executors, when they deposit life insurance proceeds and open estate accounts; with testators, when they open savings accounts; and with heirs, when they deposit inheritance checks. They benefit from the full spectrum of all three estate ‘characters’.

Life Insurance Agents / Brokers

The named beneficiary status of life insurance and segregated funds make them an ideal way to transfer wealth, avoid probate fees and keep assets confidential. Life insurance is also great for funding taxes arising on death, estate equalization, insured bequests and a host of business solutions.

Financial Advisors

With an average of $4.4 Billion (with a ‘B’) transferring to the next generation every single day, Financial Advisors can add the CEA to identify themselves as the professionals who can help executors. These are the most trusted and influential members of their testator parents’ lives. They want to minimize estate challenges of taxation, illiquidity, and inequality, and they have vested interests in facilitating discussions.

Lawyers

Lawyers involved in estates struggle to be identifiable beyond their peers and centers of influence. The CEA is a logical, recognizable solution, which also forms a powerful network and a filter to your area of expertise, from the CEAs who understand executors’ risks and the value of your important role in mitigating that risk and ensuring estate wishes are fulfilled.

Realtors

CEAs are educated in the vast differences between property sales in estate situations versus regular transactions and they are looking for realtors who understand this unique and special market. Property makes up a significant portion of the average estate, so executors need CEA Realtors.