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With Gentreo, you can create your state-specific Will, Power of Attorney, Revocable Living Trust, Health Care Proxy, Pet Trust, and Pet Power of Attorney and store these documents in an easily accessible Family Digital Vault that you can share with your family members.
December 4, 2024 — Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, emphasizes the importance of aligning life insurance choices with individual goals and needs. Gentreo supports seniors in planning their legacies by offering tools to complement life insurance, such as wills and trusts, ensuring comprehensive financial security for loved ones.
November 27, 2024 — Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, highlights the importance of financial independence for women and how Gentreo’s estate planning tools can provide long-term financial security. By offering accessible resources like wills, trusts, and digital vaults, Gentreo empowers women to take control of their financial futures and protect their assets.
November 23, 2024 — Renee Fry explores how earning the U.S. average salary of $63,795 can pave the way to financial success or lead to significant challenges. Strategic saving and investing can foster generational wealth, while poor spending habits and lack of planning may result in debt and financial struggles.
November 20, 2024 — Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, has been honored as one of the Most Influential CEOs by CEO Monthly for her innovative leadership in revolutionizing estate planning. Under her guidance, Gentreo has made estate planning accessible and affordable, helping families secure their futures with tools like the Digital Vault and achieving an impressive 92% user retention rate.
November 6, 2024 — Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, emphasizes the importance of choosing the right will by understanding state-specific requirements. Gentreo simplifies the process by offering state-compliant estate planning tools and resources, helping users create the documents they need with confidence.
November 4, 2024 — Julie Fry, COO of Gentreo, highlights the challenges many face in saving for retirement, often due to the perception that retirement is unattainable. Gentreo helps individuals take actionable steps toward financial security by providing tools to plan and protect their assets for the future.
October 21, 2024 — Gentreo’s CEO, Renee Fry, highlights that older adults are often targeted by financial exploitation, including scams from strangers, fake charities, and even family members, and emphasizes the importance of educating seniors, using trusted individuals for power of attorney, and staying proactive with estate planning to protect against these threats.
October 21, 2024 — Gentreo’s CEO, Renee Fry, explains that seniors should choose a life insurance policy based on their unique financial needs, goals, and family situations, considering term life insurance for short-term obligations and whole life insurance for long-term benefits, while also emphasizing the importance of sharing insurance documents with loved ones to ensure access to benefits when needed.
October 21, 2024 — Gentreo’s founder, Julie Fry, emphasizes that successfully aging in place requires assessing both current and future physical, mental, and safety needs, making necessary home modifications, ensuring access to care, and incorporating technology to assist with daily living and oversight, while also encouraging families to work together to ensure a safe and supportive environment for aging loved ones.
September 12, 2024 — Gentreo highlights five common estate planning scams and offers tips to avoid them. With only 32% of Americans having a will, it’s crucial to protect yourself while planning for the future.
August 6, 2024 — Gentreo CEO and co-founder Renee Fry emphasizes the importance of having an estate plan to align financial goals and secure the future with your partner. Gentreo’s tools help couples work together to build a shared vision and avoid financial misunderstandings.
July 21 2024 — Gentreo’s founder, Julie Fry, helps share tips for caregivers and what to consider regarding senior care.
June 28, 2024 — Failing to create an estate plan can cost heirs 3% to 8% of their inheritance in legal fees and delays, warns Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo. To avoid this, encourage your parents to plan their estate, regardless of their net worth, to save time, money, and stress.
June 5, 2024 — Gentreo was recognized by Retirement Living as one of the best online will providers for its affordability, compliance with state laws, robust templates, excellent customer support, and seamless document revisions. This distinction highlights Gentreo’s commitment to making estate planning accessible and efficient.
June 4, 2024 — Founder Renee Fry was a featured panelist during New York Tech Week at “The Future of Applied AI” sponsored by the Harvard Business School Club of NY, Accenture and Alinea Ventures.
May 27, 2024 — Founders and sisters Renee Fry and Julie Fry were honored by Rise Above 2% which features some of the only 2,300 women entrepreneurs who have raised more than $1M in funding.
May 24, 2024 — Julie Fry, inspired by her own challenges with estate planning after a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, founded Gentreo in 2022 to simplify the process. Based in Quincy, Massachusetts, Gentreo provides tools for creating wills, living trusts, and digital vaults, empowering families to manage and update their estate plans with ease.
May 15, 2024 — Follow this estate planning checklist for you (and your heirs) to hold on to more of your hard-earned money.
April 24, 2024 — The idea of the mothers portrayed in 1960s movies and art is as outdated as many other attitudes of that era. Today’s moms shape their own ideas of motherhood
April 22, 2024 — Gentreo is featured in Microsoft Start’s article on actionable tips from experts on how to quit dwelling on your finances and actually start acting on them.
April 17, 2024 —
Renee Fry, CEO and co-founder of Gentreo, highlights how Gentreo’s reminders help users stay on track with their estate planning. By choosing a service that encourages action, like Gentreo, individuals can move past financial stress and take meaningful steps toward securing their future.
April 6, 2024 — To reach your financial retirement goals, you have to plan, starting with a budget before retirement. “Many seniors realize they never knew just how much money they spent per year before they retired as they had never truly tracked their spending. This then causes seniors to then not know how much money is required to sustain their lifestyle going forward,” says Renee Fry, CEO of estate planning site Gentreo. “From homes to travel to food and daily living expenses, seniors need to plan for the life they dreamt about or they will regret not being able to live the lives they dreamed of for so long.”
March 28, 2024 — How can individuals aged 50 optimize life insurance into their estate planning strategies?
If 40 is the new 30, then let’s hope 50 is the new 40! But, no matter what, it is a great time to not only plan but to make sure all the planning you have done up to this point is set up to help ensure everyone you want to care for is cared for in these next chapters of life. Life insurance can be a critical part of estate planning as it establishes a foundation for those you love once you are gone. None of us like to plan for death, but it is usually much easier to plan while you are happy and healthy than when you are not.
March 28, 2024 — Saving for retirement is a challenging task. You’re funding your future while paying for your present. Throw in inflation and possibly unexpected expenses, such as caring for ailing parents or losing a job, and retirement planning can be stressful.
March 20, 2024 — If you think retirement is the end of building wealth, then you’ll be surprised to learn that there are actually several ways people can become richer after they retire. Some of these methods require an upfront investment, like purchasing rental properties. Others simply require some patience and long-term planning.
Proper estate planning, both before and after you retire, is key to generating and maintaining wealth — for you and your descendants. It’s also a good way to build wealth if you’re caring for your aging parents and expect to receive an inheritance later in life.
“Make sure your parents do their estate planning, and you may inherit a decent-sized windfall,” said Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo…
March 18, 2024 — As you age, your ability to make decisions may become compromised. You’re also more likely to have a health situation during which you’re unable to express your wishes. That’s where a power of attorney comes in.
A power of attorney, also called a POA, is a document that appoints a person (an agent) to act on another’s (the principal’s) behalf. Agents have the power to make important legal, financial, and health decisions on behalf of the principal. An agent is often a caregiver, family member, or close friend, and sometimes it’s an attorney.
March 13, 2024 — Gentreo’s Mary Kate D’Souza was a featured guest on Our Ventura TV , hosted by Sandra Siepak.
As you toil away at your job in your 20s, 30s and 40s, you may not be thinking about the financial safety net you’re quietly building for your retirement years. Thanks to Social Security, nearly all Americans are assured a guaranteed monthly income after they reach retirement age—no matter how long they live.
Knowing when to take Social Security just might be the most important decision you’ll make in retirement. Claim benefits early and you and your spouse will face a steep and permanent cut in monthly income.
Improving your financial situation requires smart choices. MoneyGeek provides free, expert-driven advice and personalized tools to help you feel on top of your finances.
Estate planning is relevant not only after your passing but also during your lifetime. It encompasses creating documents like a health care proxy (health care power of attorney) and a financial power of attorney. These documents designate individuals who can make decisions on your behalf when you’re alive but are un
One essential component of a robust retirement financial plan is estate planning. Regardless of your marital status, residency or living arrangements, having an estate plan is crucial for everyone. Failing to have one can result in substantial losses of 3% to 10% or more of your estate’s value due to court and legal fees.
Estate planning is relevant not only after your passing but also during your lifetime. It encompasses creating documents like a health care proxy (health care power of attorney) and a financial power of attorney.
February 9, 2024 — Estate-planning practices apply to every client, no matter their tax bracket, says Renee Fry, co-founder and CEO of Gentreo, a company that provides estate-planning document services…
January 24, 2024 — In the legal world, middle-class Americans are in a real conundrum, often leading to the nation’s median-income earners getting no help at all.
In the United States, average lawyer hourly rates run from $211 to $424, and a lost trial can be even more costly, according to LawPay. This puts legal help far out of reach for the average American, who has a median income of $74,580, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
January 9, 2024 — Not everyone will receive an inheritance, but those who do should treat it as their best hope for retirement salvation. That means having difficult conversations with their parents and planning for a smooth transition of generational wealth.
“The cost of caring for aging loved ones can be daunting and eat away what might have been if long-term care insurance or in-home care — which is often much less expensive — are not options,” said Renee Fry, CEO of estate planning platform Gentreo….
Life insurance can seem daunting as there are so many different kinds — basic, term, whole and countless others. While you should talk with a licensed life insurance provider to get the best information, there are details that are good to know when going into a conversation.
December 29, 2023 — Renee Fry, CEO of estate planning platform Gentreo, said, “Check the box and get your estate planning done. It’s now easy and affordable with online solutions that allow you to do your planning in as little as a half hour.”
Fry added, “Most everyone knows they need to do their estate plan to protect all they love, so before the year ends, complete the documents like your will or living trust. Know that you took the steps to help all who you love when they might need help the most.”
As you toil away at your job in your 20s, 30s and 40s, you may not be thinking about the financial safety net you’re quietly building for your retirement years. Thanks to Social Security, nearly all Americans are assured a guaranteed monthly income after they reach retirement age—no matter how long they live.
Knowing when to take Social Security just might be the most important decision you’ll make in retirement. Claim benefits early and you and your spouse will face a steep and permanent cut in monthly income. Waiting until later, however, and you’ll collect a payout that’s as much as 50 percent higher…
December 21, 2023 — If you left the ultimate loose ends untied in 2023, your children or other heirs will get stuck with the tab if you don’t get your ducks in a row.
“Do your estate plan,” said Renee Fry, CEO of estate planning platform Gentreo. “Stop waiting for tomorrow. Save yourself and your family time and lots of money by getting your will or living trust and more done. Families lose money every year because planning wasn’t done.”
December 20, 2023 — It’s remarkable how many people don’t know how they are spending their time,” says Renee Fry, founder and CEO of Gentreo, an estate planning website, and an assistant teacher of productivity classes at MIT…
November 9, 2023 –Gentreo named to list of best online will making programs. Gentreo – For a complete estate planning service that is customizable to your exact situation, Gentreo offers a way to create, store and share your estate plan. If you have a blended family, specific gifts or distinct wishes for a pet, the site walks you through the details of sorting out your preferences and making a will that suits your needs. Once the will is complete, you can upload it to your family vault and choose which beneficiaries
October 4, 2023 — Celebrating the NFL’s Crucial Catch: Intercept Cancer campaign, 18 patients of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Cancer Center received surprise invitations for a Day of Pampering and the opportunity to attend New England’s game against the New Orleans Saints in Week 5.
October 28, 2023 — As you toil away at your job in your 20s, 30s and 40s, you may not be thinking about the financial safety net you’re quietly building for your retirement years. Thanks to Social Security, nearly all Americans are assured a guaranteed monthly income after they reach retirement age—no matter how long they live. Expert tips on Social Security from Gentreo’s Mary Kate D’Souza
October 28, 2023 — If you or a loved one suffered from a sudden and debilitating medical condition that required long-term care, how prepared would you be? As the U.S. population ages, and as millions of baby boomers in particular move into their later years, the need for long-term care will grow dramatically. Yet figuring out how to finance the high cost — before you might need it — can be bewildering. Interview with Julie Fry, Expert Q&A
October 11, 2023 — According to Forbes, the average annual salary in the United States is $59,428, more than four times the federal poverty line of $14,580. So how can someone who earns the salary that the first number represents wind up in the financial straits of someone who has to get by on the second?
August 3, 2023 — Advisors often work with high-net-worth clients and are able to understand the expectations wealthy clients have about managing their finances. The good news is that some of those takeaways can be applied to clients who are not high-net-worth individuals.
Estate-planning practices apply to every client, no matter their tax bracket, says Renee Fry, co-founder and CEO of Gentreo, a company that provides estate-planning document services.
August 2, 2023 — Your parents raised you, loved you and provided financial security as you grew up. Now that you’re grown with a family of your own, the roles are reversed, and you’re a caregiver to your aging parents. Perhaps they need help managing day-to-day affairs such as finances, household maintenance or care for physical conditions like arthritis or gout. You might be concerned what would happen if they forgot to pay their bills, or if one of them suffered a stroke or received an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.
July 26, 2023 — Taking care of your parents can be one of the most challenging roles. In this guide, we offer insight into eight steps for easier and more effective elder care.
May 18, 2023 — Harvard Business School Association of Boston (HBSAB) in coordination with the MIT Press, hosted the Our Aging Market Grand Forum to discuss how businesses can successfully address the aging market. The Grand Forum brought together industry experts, like Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, to discuss how the changing senior market is driving wealth transfer and changes in the workforce and spurring new technology.
May 2, 2023 — Much has been written about how millennials and Gen Zers are changing the nature of saving for retirement and how they’re even on pace to out-save the baby boomers. But what about the lost generation in the middle?
Gen Xers are now firmly in middle age, with the oldest in their late 50s on the runway to retirement. Are they ready?
April 14, 2023 — Gentreo is an online estate planning tool that lets people create wills and other estate planning documents without the help of an attorney. Gentreo’s $100 fee plus $50 recurring subscription costs are much less than an attorney will charge. Yet you can prepare, in addition to a last will and testament, documents establishing a revocable living trust, power of attorney, healthcare proxy and additional documents to provide for and protect pets.
February 8, 2023 — Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) today is hosting its first global in-person Demo Day, with 10 participating companies from the US and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The cohort companies, all founded by women, will pitch over 200 investors, as well as potential business partners and customers.
February 5, 2023 — The Covid-19 pandemic has fueled a sharp rise in online wills.
Just after the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Boston-based online estate planning firm Gentreo saw a 143% week-over-week increase in people creating online wills, also known as e-wills or digital wills.
January 31, 2023 — You can maximize the use of life insurance by making sure you have enough to serve your goals. Further, you need to make sure that your beneficiaries and/or your agent serving as your power of attorney and the personal representative of your estate have all relevant information regarding your policies. Finally, it’s important to review both your estate plan and your insurance policies annually to ensure that they reflect your current needs and goals.
November 29, 2022 — November is National Caregivers Month, making it a prime opportunity to bring attention to a frequently overlooked and severely under-resourced subset of Americans. Recent data from the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and AARP indicates over 50 million Americans currently serve as unpaid caregivers, a stat that according to the NAC has increased by nearly 25% since 2015.
November 21, 2022 — “A good retirement checklist includes estate planning, no matter what your net worth,” Renee Fry, CEO of online estate planning firm Gentreo told RetireGuide. “From a health care proxy to a will or trust, these are living documents that state your choices that need to be completed and updated regularly.”
August 4, 2022 — Many think a will is the same as a power of attorney or a health care proxy; this is not the case. Each document serves a different purpose and learning more is a great way to prevent costly mistakes in creating and using documents. Before you even begin creating your will, you may want to assess your financial situation and the belongings you would like to pass down to friends or family. Many people think they must have a certain amount of wealth before they need a will, but that isn’t true.
June 3, 2022 — While it has been predicted for some time, the U.S. is now in the midst of the biggest transfer of wealth in modern history. According to Federal Reserve data, at the end of the first quarter of 2021, Americans aged 70 and above had a net worth of nearly $35 trillion. Whether or not Americans prepare for this wealth transfer will decide how much money goes to lawyers and courts and how much will go to family and friends. If an individual has no estate plan, anywhere from 3%-8% of the estate’s value is lost to unnecessary probate costs and legal fees.
June 1, 2022 — While having estate plans is a wise decision and should be treated as part of one’s basic financial responsibilities, it is still regarded as a social taboo in our modern culture. That’s something a few companies are currently working on changing. One company in particular, Gentreo, has developed an online system designed to help streamline all of the technical aspects of estate planning and eliminate the morbidity we tend to associate it with.
May 20, 2022 — Many people have a will in place if they are elderly or otherwise, which may account for various assets and their other wishes when they pass on. However, it’s not as common for people to have a healthcare proxy – also known as a power of attorney for healthcare in some states – to make medical decisions for you.
May 12, 2022 — Tax season was just upon us here in the U.S., which many of us are relieved to have just checked off. Preparing for death and emergencies when we need others to make decisions for us is something most of us have not done. A 2021 Gallup poll showed less than 46% of Americans surveyed have a will, a staggering figure given the consequences of not doing estate planning. Whether it is paying thousands of dollars in legal fees to have judges make decisions for your loved ones or witnessing families break up over resulting legal battles, the consequences of not doing estate planning are enormous and costly.
May 3, 2022 — When you live and breathe the problem your business is trying to solve, it takes on greater significance—your company becomes purpose-driven. For us, the business idea for an estate planning company came about when our family had to pay $10,000 to create our parents’ estate plan. That single issue sparked a passion that has driven us to create a workable estate planning solution fit for everyone.
April 26, 2022 — For Renee Fry, CEO of estate planning benefit provider Gentreo, her experience as a sandwich caregiver has helped her create that safe space for her own employees. Fry cared for her father through Alzheimer’s, moving into her parents’ home in Pennsylvania with her 10-year-old son. She quickly realized that being open about her caregiving responsibilities helped clients and employees understand her burdens, and her necessary boundaries.
April 12, 2022 — Gentreo’s CEO and Co-founder, Renee Fry participated in a podcast with the Entrepreneur Way to discuss overcoming difficulties when starting a business, favorite books and quotes for entrepreneurs, and other resources and advice.
February 28, 2022 — How can you maximize the use of life insurance in estate planning? Make sure you have enough to serve your goals. Further, you need to make sure that your beneficiaries and/or your agent serving as your power of attorney and the personal representative of your estate have all relevant information regarding your policies. Finally, it’s important to review both your estate plan and your insurance policies annually to ensure that they reflect your current needs and goals.
February 21, 2022 — Consider your employees’ real needs and wants as you plan your benefits package. As we’ve seen, employees want more and they also want to know their employer actually cares about them and those they care about. Life happens. Give your employees resources that help deal with that. This is why Gentreo has Gentreo coaches now so whenever employees need help, that help is there.
February 11, 2022 — Over the next 25 years, an estimated $68 trillion will be transferred from U.S. households to heirs and charity. Without a plan in place, probate costs could be 3 percent to 8 percent of the value of an estate, said Brickson Diamond, a board member of Gentreo, an online estate-planning platform.
February 7, 2022 — Overall, 33% of U.S. adults have a will, according to Caring.com’s 2021 wills and estate planning survey. Meanwhile, 27.5% of Black Americans have one, up from 25.9% in 2020. The result is that Black Americans are missing out on the largest wealth transfer in history, said Brickson Diamond, a board member of Gentreo, an online estate-planning platform.
February 4, 2022 — In this episode, we discuss Gentreo’s Digital Family Vault and how users can securely store their documents and information like asset lists, and share them with their loved ones and agents. We talk about how Gentreo can help you include digital assets like cryptocurrency and NFTs in your estate plan without putting your private key at risk. We also touch on Gentreo Memorial Videos and how they can add to your personal legacy and leave a special gift for your loved ones after you pass away.
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February 3, 2022 — Gentreo is not just about a transaction or a one-and-done document. We are a trusted partner. We help you stay connected to your employees and/or customers through their most important life moments like births, marriage, and sadly, death of loved ones. As a Gentreo partner, we align with your mission and help your stakeholders prepare for their journeys in new and deeper ways. We look out for you and the people engaged with your organization by helping you stay in touch with them and offer them additional benefits and services.
February 2, 2022 — “Many seniors realize they never knew just how much money they spent per year before they retired as they had never truly tracked their spending. This then causes seniors to then not know how much money is required to sustain their lifestyle going forward,” says Renee Fry, CEO of estate planning site Gentreo. “From homes to travel to food and daily living expenses, seniors need to plan for the life they dreamt about or they will regret not being able to live the lives they dreamed of for so long.”
January 31, 2022 — “Productive conversations start with everyone having good information and sound resources and not a battle over where to turn to get help,” said Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, an estate planning service. “And remember that these are not one and done conversations. Life changes and so must one’s estate plan. Here is an example of an article you can share to not only get discussions started but to make sure they result in actions taken.”
January 24, 2022 — Now, more than ever before, Black Americans are in a position to make a lasting impact on future generations. And I don’t just mean just in the form of our knowledge and experience; I’m talking about a real, tangible, in-your-pocket, provide-a-better-life-for-future-generations impact. Per the New York Times, in 2021 Black households still only have a mere 12 cents for every dollar of a typical white household. Estate planning presents a prime opportunity to work on closing this gap.
January 3, 2022 — “You might be caring for aging parents and children now,” said Renee Fry, CEO of the estate planning firm Gentreo. “This means you need to get all your ducks in a row and make sure your parents have updated documents, too. The three essential estate planning documents are wills, health care proxies, and powers of attorney for financial assets.”
December 13, 2021 — Renee Fry is the founder of Gentreo, a financial estate planning, web-enabled software solution. This SaaS platform compiles all of the important faculties and tools needed to make preparing an estate plan both approachable and reassuring. Fry started in the political sphere and is now in the startup world, which gave her both the legal and business savvy needed to make a process as complex as constructing a last will and testament not only digitized but legal-proof.
December 6, 2021 — Writing a will seemed labor-intensive and costly, so Kimberly Onsager kept putting it off. The event manager in Boston didn’t have time to do the research about what to include and didn’t want to be taken advantage of by an attorney, she said. “I wanted to be safer than sorry,” she said. In June, she created her will in roughly an hour for about $100 with online will-creation company Gentreo.
December 3, 2021 — Bequeathing a house to heirs: “A will is the standard way to bequeath property to children,” says Mary Kate D’Souza, a co-founder and the chief legal officer of gentreo.com, an online estate planning platform. “The parents have the ownership and benefit of the property during their lifetime and when the last parent dies, the children get the home with the stepped-up basis,” she says, referring to the increased value of the property when it passes to the inheritors.
December 3, 2021 — Earlier this year, my father passed away. My family and I were fortunate he had an estate plan in place to assist with the end-of-life decisions we faced. All of the documents in an estate plan serve important purposes, but from an emotional perspective – particularly during the most challenging of times – the Healthcare Power of Attorney was invaluable. My father’s preparation alleviated much of the decision-making burden and took away any guesswork surrounding his care. Knowing exactly what he wanted as his condition deteriorated allowed us to find peace throughout the process.
December 1, 2021 — “Adult children should make sure that their parents have completed health care power of attorney, nominating at least a first choice and an alternate,” Mary Kate D’Souza, co-founder and chief legal officer at digital estate planning platform Gentreo, tells Health. Having your parents select an alternate is crucial. “For example, if your father appointed your mother and she had dementia, she would not be able to serve as his health care agent. But if your father nominated you as an alternate, you could make health care decisions for him without court involvement,” explains D’Souza.
November 23, 2021 — Gentreo, which literally means three generations, is a financial estate planning, web-enabled software solution. It compiles all of the important faculties and tools needed to make preparing an estate plan both approachable and reassuring. Putting people back into the center of this sensitive process, Gentreo combines legal savvy, technology, and financial understanding into one all-encompassing package.
November 22, 2021 — Startup owners can be forgiven for not considering estate planning previously, as leaders are often working nonstop to get their business off the ground, but not taking the time to get on top of it could cause many problems farther down the line.
November 17, 2021 — Pet estate planning is an essential pet security solution that ensures your pets are cared for, the way you want, by the person(s) you choose. Whether you’re simply going out of town and leaving your best pal with a friend or family member, or an unexpected event leaves you unavailable to attend to your animal family, you can count on a pet estate plan to have your — and their — backs.
November 17, 2021 — For a complete estate planning service that is customizable to your exact situation, Gentreo offers a way to create, store and share your estate plan. If you have a blended family, specific gifts or distinct wishes for a pet, the site walks you through the details of sorting out your preferences and making a will that suits your needs. Once the will is complete, you can upload it to your family vault and choose which beneficiaries can have access to it. The site also offers additional estate planning documents such as a health care proxy and power of attorney. Membership starts at $100 for the first year.
October 15, 2021 — “Gather your important information and put it safely in the cloud in a format that is easy and safe to use, like a digital vault,” said Mary Kate D’Souza, co-founder and chief legal officer of Gentreo, an online estate-planning solution. “Knowing who, what and where saves time and money in critical situations from bank or credit union account numbers to insurance contacts and policy numbers. Join a site that walks you through what account information and documents to save and lets you save that information. It will be much easier to go to your digital vault and access your account numbers than to have to call your broker later and try to pass security tests to prove you are who you say you are.”
October 1, 2021 — Millennials might still feel young at age 40, but like it or not, physical decline awaits on the other side of the hill. If you don’t plan for it, your loved ones will pay the price. “You should have an updated and accessible estate plan, which at a minimum should include a medical and financial power of attorney and a will,” said Mary Kate D’Souza, co-founder and chief legal officer of Gentreo, a boutique online estate planning software firm. “These three documents can potentially save you thousands of dollars and protect you and your loved ones.”
September 30, 2021 — Hiring and retaining the right talent has become more challenging and often leads to countless sleepless nights for senior management. But it is definitely worth the hardship – a top performer in an organization can deliver up to 400% more productivity than an average employee, according to the Harvard Business Review. Monetary compensation is not the sole factor that influences and retains top talent.
September 17, 2021 — All employees in the US are entitled to certain benefits: social security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation insurance. However, sadly not enough Americans are aware of estate planning and its importance. This is especially concerning, given the fact that we are all still living with the consequences of COVID-19 but slowly migrating to a post-pandemic world. Not having the necessary documentation in place leaves assets under the control of the state, which is a worrying trend that could become increasingly common if people don’t start preparing correctly.
August 27, 2021 — “Trusts and wills are different means of distributing and controlling your assets after your death — although you can also create and fund a trust while you are alive,” said Mary Kate D’Souza, co-founder and chief legal officer of Gentreo. However, there are some key differences.
August 17, 2021 — For one price, Gentreo creates comprehensive, state-specific documents—wills, health care proxies, powers of attorney—and stores them in a secure digital vault easily accessed by you and your loved ones. If laws change, you get an alert. Nothing says “adulting” quite like estate planning, which is why it’s so easy to put off. “The simplicity of Gentreo nudges people in the right direction,” says judge Erin Lowry.
August 9, 2021 — Death is an uncomfortable subject to talk about, and making plans that will never include you can be a surreal experience, but these are conversations that need to happen. As a financial professional who helps clients with life insurance, you understand that better than almost anyone else who’s still alive.
July 13, 2021 — Estate planning is a frequently overlooked aspect of divorce, according to Mary Kate D’Souza, co-founder and chief legal officer of Gentreo.com, an online estate planning software. This includes financial and medical power of attorney and your will. “Also be sure to review all your beneficiary statements to make sure that your ex-spouse is no longer named as your beneficiary,” D’Souza said.
June 20, 2021 — As a part of my series about the “5 Things Retirees Say They Wish They Were Told Before They Began Retirement”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Julie Fry. Julie is the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Gentreo -the one- stop solution for everyone’s estate planning needs no matter where they are in life. Recognized as an eldercare expert, Julie often speaks on the evolving marketplace including spearheading the “Our Aging Market” conference at the Harvard Business School Association of Boston.
June 10, 2021 — Think about all of the potential medical services and life-sustaining treatments you may need to have in different scenarios — resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition and hydration, etc. Do you want them or would you prefer not to have them?
December 7, 2020 — Experts hear stories about couples failing to create an estate plan all the time, even as a deadly pandemic continues to raise awareness about the importance of estate planning. “People often underestimate how much it will cost if they don’t plan,” says Renee Fry, founder of Gentreo, an online estate-planning company.
November 11, 2020 — For a complete estate planning service that is customizable to your exact situation, Gentreo offers a way to create, store and share your estate plan. If you have a blended family, specific gifts or distinct wishes for a pet, the site walks you through the details of sorting out your preferences and making a will that suits your needs.
August 13, 2020 — Companies that help consumers execute online wills, including big players such as Legal Zoom and Quicken Will Maker as well as smaller startups like Trust & Will and Cake, have seen a surge in customers. One newer online trust and estate company, Gentreo, says business is up 223 percent over the past two months.
August 13, 2020 — Gentreo, a startup founded by three women aiming to automate estate planning, is one of the startups already signed on to work with Qubic. One of the three co-founders is a Quincy resident, and Mary D’Souza, another founder, said O’Keefe and Cain’s connections in the city have already helped make valuable introductions and get the company’s foot in the door. “We’re really fortunate at this stage in the game to have Qubic and the support they’re able to offer,” D’Souza said.
May 12, 2020 — “COVID is a wake up call,” said Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, an online-estate planning platform. “People are saying they don’t know what the future holds but they want to be prepared.” Some don’t want to even think about creating or updating a will because it makes them realize that there’s no guarantee on how long anyone has to live.
May 7, 2020 — “People know now they need these documents,” said Renee Fry, founder and CEO of Gentreo, a company that enables people to create and store a number of critical legal documents, including those that appoint health care proxies, delineate advance directives and spell out a last will and testament. She said that amid the pandemic, the platform has recently seen a 223% increase in the past month in users creating paying memberships.
April 20, 2020 — Amid talk of hospitals rationing ventilators, some people are updating their living wills or proxies to say that they do want a ventilator to extend their lives, if necessary. “In the two-and-a-half years we’ve existed, we’ve never answered questions on ventilators, but now they’re pretty common,” said Renee Fry, cofounder of Gentreo, which offers low-cost estate planning.
April 2, 2020 — Renee Fry, the CEO of Gentreo, an online estate-planning platform, told ABC News that they saw a 143% increase week-over-week in people creating wills with them last week, and she predicts it will be an event larger uptick this week, estimating it’s “probably closer 220%.”
March 25, 2020 — Over the last two weeks, online will companies have seen an explosion in users. As of Monday, Boston-based Gentreo has seen a 143% week-over-week increase in people filling out wills, according to the company, while San Diego’s Trust & Will has seen a 50% uptick in users.
February 20, 2020 — Mary Kate D’Souza co-founded an online health and estate planning company called Gentreo and she says more people are planning around their pet. “In America now, not as many people are getting married now and having families and their animals are their families and so they want to take care of them,” D’Souza said.
October 30, 2019 — When writing your online will, look for a site that is easy to navigate and allows you to save your work. “Writing a will takes thought and planning,” says Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, an online estate planning company based in Boston. “Choose a site that will help you to do this.”
September 23, 2019 — One big question mark when it comes to having parents move in is that it’s hard to predetermine the real cost, said Renee Fry, CEO of Gentreo, an elder-care estate planning service. “From extra food costs to lost wages due to having to take time off to care for parents, families often do not understand the true costs of care,” Fry said.
