Understanding your Legacy Readiness Score

Your Legacy Readiness Score is a single number from 0 to 100 that says how prepared your family actually is, based on a short set of questions about seven areas of your plan. Along with the number you get a tier, a read on each of the seven areas, and a short list of what to do next. It takes about ten minutes, and your answers are private to you.

What the score measures

The questions cover seven areas of readiness:

Documents — whether your important records are gathered, organized, and findable.
Life insurance — whether your coverage has been thought through and kept current.
Will and trust — your legal foundation, how recent it is, and whether it can be found.
Digital organization — accounts, logins, and who could reach them.
Your Circle — whether the people you trust know their roles and can act.
Emotional readiness — how confident you feel, and whether you have talked with your family.
Legacy giving — your values, stories, causes, and the messages you want to leave.

Each area gets its own 0-100 result, and the overall score brings them together. Some areas carry more weight than others, because a missing will is a bigger problem than a missing photo album.

The important part is what "readiness" means here. The score is not just a checklist of things you own. It looks at completion and at quality — whether something exists, whether it is current, and whether the right people could actually get to it. So "I have a will" lands lower than "I have a will, I reviewed it last year, and my executor knows where it is." That gap is the whole point. It is where most families get caught.

The five tiers

Your score also comes with a tier, which is just a plain-language read on where you stand.

Foundation Needed (0-29) — there are major gaps. Focus on the first essential steps.
Getting Organized (30-49) — some pieces exist, but the plan is fragmented.
Legacy in Progress (50-69) — core planning is underway, with real strengths.
Well Prepared (70-84) — most essentials are current, accessible, and coordinated.
Legacy Ready (85-100) — highly complete. The work shifts to maintenance.

The score is yours alone. It is not a ranking against other people, and we do not tell you what percentile you are in.

Honest answers score best

Two rules matter more than anything else here, and both exist so the score rewards being thoughtful rather than buying things.

A decision counts as much as a document. If you looked at trusts and concluded you do not need one, that is a strong answer, not a gap. Same with charitable giving, or life insurance you have deliberately decided against. What the score is measuring is whether you have dealt with the question — and "I considered this and decided against it" means you have. You will never score lower for an appropriate "not needed after review" answer.

Questions that do not apply are removed, never counted against you. No children means the guardianship questions come out entirely. They are not scored as zero and they are not held against you — they are taken out of the calculation as if they were never asked. Nobody is penalized for a life that looks different from someone else's.

So answer honestly, including the uncomfortable ones. Overstating where you stand only produces a number that will not help you.

Why some answers are already filled in

You will see suggested answers on some questions, marked with a short note like "Based on your vault: your Last Will is uploaded." Those come from what Hoovalu already knows, so you are not retyping things we can see.

Two things to know about them. First, nothing counts until you confirm it — a suggestion is only a starting point, and you can raise it or lower it freely. Second, we never suggest the top answer for you. The best answers are about whether something is current, intentional, and reachable by the right person, and only you can say that. Your vault can prove a will exists. It cannot prove the will is up to date.

Why your score changes, and why there is always a next step

Readiness drifts. Nothing has to go wrong for it to happen — a beneficiary form ages, a named guardian moves away, a new grandchild arrives, an executor's phone number changes. The plan that fit you three years ago quietly stops fitting.

That is why your next steps list is never empty, even at a very high score. Once the essentials are done, the recommendations turn into upkeep: confirm beneficiaries, re-check who has access after a life event, take another look at the plan this year. There is no state of being finished, and the tool does not pretend otherwise.

Your score does not change on its own. It stays exactly where you left it until you answer again. About a year after you finish, the date on your score card turns amber and we will suggest a fresh look — a nudge, not a penalty.

Retaking it

Open Readiness from the menu, or the score card on your dashboard, and choose Retake. Your previous result is kept, so you can see how far you have moved instead of just where you are. If you have to stop partway through, your answers save as you go and you can pick up where you left off.