Personal trust services
Protect your legacy—and your loved ones
Naming a family member as trustee may seem like an honor, but it can put them at legal risk and strain relationships. Learn how TIAA Trust’s professional administration safeguards both your legacy and family harmony.
What is a personal trust?
A personal trust is a powerful estate planning tool that enables professional management of your assets for the benefit of your chosen beneficiaries. It provides tax advantages, protects your wealth, and ensures your legacy endures by creating lasting financial security for the people and causes you care about most.
Choosing a trustee
The weight of trustee responsibility: choose wisely
Personal liability at stake
Your trustee is legally and financially responsible for managing trust assets. Individual trustees often lack expertise in complex tax laws, investment requirements, and fiduciary duties—putting them at risk of personal liability.
Preserving family harmony
Individual trustees face challenging family pressures when making distributions or investment decisions. TIAA Trust provides impartial administration, helping preserve family relationships while ensuring fair treatment of all beneficiaries.
A time-consuming role
Trust administration demands significant time commitment and specialized knowledge across investments, tax law, and estate planning. Most individual trustees lack the resources to properly manage these responsibilities.
Complex responsibilities
From recordkeeping and tax filings to beneficiary communications and distributions, trust administration demands significant time and expertise. Individual trustees often struggle with these complex responsibilities.
Benefits
Helping you make the most of your trust
Preserve your wealth
Tax-efficiently transfer assets and reduce probate costs.
Provide for loved ones
Ensuring that assets are prudently managed to protect your heirs.
Facilitate charitable giving
Simplifying planned giving while maximizing tax benefits and maintaining confidentiality.
Protect your wishes when you can’t
Providing structured support and financial management in the event of incapacity.
How we work with you
Integrated trust services, seamlessly delivered
Our trust services are strategically integrated with everything else about your TIAA Wealth Management experience, creating a 360°, one-stop solution for your money management.
Wealth management advisor
The quarterback of your wealth management team and keeper of the bigger picture.
Portfolio manager
Your investment strategist and asset management expert.
Trust administrators
The specialists who administer your trust to meet your goals.
Personal trust services
Experienced, impartial trusteeship—tailored to you
We serve in a range of roles so you can choose the service that best aligns with your needs.
Trustee, Co-Trustee or Successor Trustee
You can nominate us to serve now or in the future to provide holistic and impartial fiduciary administration of your trust, according to your intents and wishes as expressed in the trust agreement.
Executor
You can opt for us to serve as your executor, gathering and organizing all your assets, settling claims and conducting your final affairs as expressed in your will.
Trust types we support
Living (or Revocable) Trusts
Providing flexibility and control by allowing you to manage and consolidate assets during your lifetime, plan for incapacity and avoid the delays and costs of probate.
Irrevocable Trusts
Support your loved ones in a tax-efficient way and help reduce estate, gift, and income taxes.
Charitable Trusts
Providing income for life—or for a set period of time—to your beneficiaries, with remaining assets going to a charitable cause, offering both philanthropic impact and tax advantages.
Directed Trusts
Enabling you to separate the management of some or all of the assets in a trust from trust administration, giving you greater control over the investment strategy while limiting the trustee’s role to administrative responsibilities.
Estate settlement services
Settling an estate in the midst of loss is an emotional, stressful experience—and one that requires deep legal and trust administrator experience.
Faq
What people ask us
What is a trustee?
A trustee is a person or organization that holds and manages assets or property on behalf of another person or entity known as the “grantor.” The trustee has a legal and fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of beneficiaries, managing the trust’s assets according to the trust agreement’s terms. While a trustee can be an individual, a professional trustee offers objectivity and experience. Consider naming family members or friends trust protectors instead.
What are the benefits of naming a corporate trustee rather than an individual trustee?
Individual trustees might seem like a good option—after all, you know and trust them, and they usually have personal understanding of your family dynamics. But as non-professionals, individual trustees often don’t have the time, resources or knowledge to personally administer a trust. And if they’re unable to carry out all of their duties, they could inadvertently face serious legal and financial risks. A corporate trustee, meanwhile, is well-equipped to manage and administer trusts on an ongoing basis. A few benefits of naming a corporate trustee like TIAA Trust are:
- Experience. We have decades of expertise in carrying out the duties of a trustee, from investment management and administration of your trust terms to professional and timely recordkeeping, preparation and filing of trust income tax returns.
- Objectivity. As a fiduciary, we handle your trust professionally and impartially, helping avoid potentially challenging family dynamics.
- Continuity. We can provide seamless, responsive trust administration and trust portfolio management for as long as your trust endures.
What trustee roles can TIAA Trust play?
Depending on your estate planning needs, we can serve in the following ways:
- Sole trustee. TIAA Trust can assume the investment, administrative and fiduciary responsibilities of managing your trust according to your trust agreement.
- Co-trustee. TIAA Trust can act as a co-trustee with the individual(s) that you designate in your trust agreement. As a co-trustee, we assume full investment management and administrative responsibilities for the trust, but may share in making decisions with the individual co-trustee(s) according to the trust provisions.
- Successor trustee. TIAA Trust can be appointed in your trust agreement to serve as a trustee in the future if you or your current trustee are no longer willing or able to serve.
- Executor. TIAA Trust can also be nominated in your will to administer the settlement of your estate.
If I have assets outside of TIAA, can I still appoint TIAA Trust as my trustee?
Yes, we can be named as a trustee even if your assets are held outside of TIAA. Once we accept to serve as trustee, all cash and marketable securities will be held by TIAA (if they’re not already) once we begin serving.
If I appoint TIAA Trust as a trustee, can I change that later?
Yes, you can amend your trust to replace or remove TIAA Trust as trustee at any time, for any reason.
Resources
Explore our trust services insights and resources
What is a trust and why do I need one?
Learn whether you need a trust by familiarizing yourself with the potential benefits and terminology.
Can a revocable living trust help protect your financial affairs?
Learn more about the tool that can be used to avoid the potentially lengthy and costly probate process.
TIAA Trust forms library
Your go-to place for accessing and uploading all trust-related forms.
We’re here to help.
Have questions about TIAA Trust estate settlement services? Give us a call at 844-567-9077.
TIAA Trust, N.A. provides investment management, custody and trust services for a fee.
TIAA managed account services provide discretionary investment management services for a fee.
Investing involves risk and the value of your investments may gain or lose value and fluctuate over time. Investments in managed accounts should be considered in view of a larger, more diversified investment portfolio. Individuals should consult with an independent tax advisor, CPA and/or attorney for specific advice based on the individual's personal circumstances.
TIAA Trust, N.A. provides investment management, custody and trust services. Advisory services provided by Advice & Planning Services, a division of TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC, a registered investment adviser.
This material is for informational or educational purposes only and is not fiduciary investment advice, or a securities, investment strategy, or insurance product recommendation. This material does not consider an individual’s own objectives or circumstances which should be the basis of any investment decision.
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