What 1,300 Canadians Told Us About Estate Readiness

Who took the assessment

The Estate Readiness Assessment is a free, twelve-question tool from Estate Kit, available on estatekit.com. No account is needed. It asks about three things: whether your legal documents are in place, whether your information could be found, and whether the people you have named know what to do. Each answer is scored, and the result is an overall readiness level.

Between June 2 and October 29, 2026, 1,347 people completed the Estate Readiness Assessment. They are not a representative sample of Canadians. They are people who were interested enough in estate readiness to take a five-minute assessment, and the results show it: 91% have a Will, against roughly half of Canadians in national polls, and 69% have Powers of Attorney for both property and personal care. If anything, this group is more prepared than most.

That is what makes the rest of the findings worth reading.

Nine in ten have a Will. Fewer than one in five are estate-ready.

Only 6% gave the strongest answer on every question. Among a group where almost everyone has done the legal work.

Where are the gaps?

The assessment asks three questions about legal documents, three about information, three about people, and three reality checks. The legal questions score well. The others do not.

The legal documents are mostly in place

• 91% have a Will. Among them, one in four say it may be outdated.
• 69% have Powers of Attorney for both property and personal care.
• 57% have reviewed their legal documents in the last three years.

Many people have not read their Will since the day they signed it.

The information is not where someone could find it

• If someone needed to step in tomorrow, only 36% said everything is organized in one place. Half said "some things, but it would take effort."
• 40% said their financial accounts, insurance policies and key documents are documented and up to date.
• Only 25% have documented how to get into their devices and online accounts.

Digital access is the weakest result in the whole assessment. For most families it is also the first thing they hit: the phone that holds the two-factor codes for everything else.

The people have been named but not prepared

• 52% have discussed their role with the people they named. A third have only mentioned it in general terms.
• Only 32% have explained decisions that might surprise or confuse someone.
• If their executor or attorney had to act tomorrow, only 36% said they would know where to start. 44% said "probably, but not confidently."

That last question is the whole subject in one line. Nine in ten of these people have a Will. Barely one in three believes the person they named could pick it up and begin.

The reality checks

• Only a third (34%) said their household would run smoothly if they were unavailable for 30 days.
• 54% said their loved ones would know who to contact first if something happened.
• Nearly four in ten are not fully confident their intentions would be carried out as they expect.

What this means

A Will settles who inherits and who is in charge. It does not tell that person which accounts exist, where the original is, how to get into the phone, or why the decisions were made. The people who took this assessment have, overwhelmingly, done the legal part. Most of them have not done the rest, and most of them know it: 44% said their executor would "probably" know where to start, which is another way of saying they have never checked.

Estate readiness is the work of closing that gap. It has three parts: the legal documents, the information behind them, and the people who will need both. The assessment measures all three because a family needs all three.

See where you stand

The Estate Readiness Assessment takes about five minutes, asks twelve questions and gives you a score across all three parts. No account is needed.

If you already have a Will and want to know what the people you named would actually be able to do with it, our Make a Will Month guide walks through what to check this November.

About the data

The figures on this page come from 1,347 Estate Readiness Assessments completed on estatekit.com between June 2 and October 29, 2026. The assessment is a free, twelve-question self-evaluation designed by Estate Kit. It is not a survey of Canadians.

Respondents were visitors to our website who chose to take the assessment. They are likely to be more interested in estate planning, and more prepared, than the general public, and may include people outside Canada. The results should not be read as representing the Canadian population. Nine in ten respondents have a Will, compared with roughly half of Canadians in national polls.

Figures count completed assessments, not unique people; someone who took the assessment twice is counted twice. Incomplete assessments are not included. Answers are self-reported and were not verified.

Each answer is scored from 0 to 3 by Estate Kit. Readiness stages are based on the average score across all twelve questions: Not Yet Estate-Ready below 1.25, Partially Estate-Ready from 1.25, Mostly Estate-Ready from 2.00, High Estate Readiness from 2.75, and Estate-Ready only for the strongest answer on every question. The stage definitions are Estate Kit's own and are not an industry or legal standard. "Estate-ready" on this page means meeting those criteria, nothing more.

Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number and may not sum to 100. Figures last updated October 2026.

This page reports what people told us in a self-assessment. It is published for general information and educational purposes only.