Make things easier for the people you love.

Naming them isn't the same as wanting them to do it. Settling an estate takes thirty to eighty hours of paperwork, usually during the worst month of someone's life. Deciding whether to withdraw care is heavier still. Name Kinly first and let your children just be your children. Or name Kinly as the backup, so they're never left without a plan.

No. You are free to put close friends, relatives, or chosen family first wherever you like. Think of Kinly as your guaranteed backstop: we catch you if everyone ahead of us can't or won't step in. First choice stays yours; we can be your last resort.

You don't need an attorney to join. Your membership includes all four legal documents, written for your state. An attorney writes documents and hands them back; we write them and then serve in the roles inside them. Most estate attorneys will act as executor, some will act as financial power of attorney, and almost none will take the medical power of attorney role or answer a call at three in the morning if something happens. If you do have an attorney, keep them. We work alongside them, and you're welcome to have them review anything we produce.

Anytime, as often as you like. Most people take an afternoon to write it the first time, and after that change it as they see fit.

Carry your Kinly membership card, and put Kinly's emergency number in your phone's emergency contacts (for example, the Health app on iPhone). If you're brought in to the hospital and unable to communicate, hospital staff will call the number on the card. Kinly will confirm your identity and active membership, then send your medical documents and care wishes (advance directive, healthcare power of attorney, that sort of thing) directly to the hospital by fax or email so your instructions are on record.

A trust is a legal arrangement you create by signing a document that moves your assets under a set of rules you've written. Think of it as a private instruction manual with its own manager. You name a trustee: that's you while you're healthy, and someone else after you're incapacitated or gone. The trustee has a fiduciary duty, meaning they're legally required to act in your best interests, not their own.

A trust company is a specialized financial institution, regulated like a bank (by state or federal banking regulators) but without deposit accounts. Regulators require them to hold substantial cash reserves and can step in if one ever failed, which is the safety net behind the promise.

Why it matters: without these documents, incapacity or death dumps your affairs into court, with guardianship proceedings while you're alive and probate after. For someone without children, there's often no obvious family member a hospital or court would default to, so naming your own decision-maker in advance carries extra weight. A trust starts out revocable (you can rewrite it anytime) and becomes irrevocable at death.

It means legally required to act in your interest and follow what you wrote. Kinly's fiduciary partner is a chartered trust company, so the people acting on your care plan are bound to carry out your decisions, not their own.

There are two ways their authority switches on. Voluntary: you activate it yourself whenever you want. Say you're leaving the country for a year and you don't want bills or accounts to need your attention. Involuntary: if you're briefly unconscious, the hospital contacts them and they act until you're back. If cognitive decline is the issue, it's a higher bar: two medical professionals (typically your own doctor plus a physician their trust company appoints) have to agree you're no longer able to decide for yourself.

POA is designed for shorter stretches, under about six months. Past that point, your assets shift into the trust itself and get managed there for the duration.

None, as long as you're alive and competent. Once you're incapacitated and your financial power of attorney is active, they can handle day-to-day money: cash accounts, paying bills. Your investments stay yours until a longer-term threshold is crossed, roughly six months of incapacity or a formal long-term disability determination, at which point the investments move into the trust and the company manages them around your care needs.

If Kinly's partner trust company is your acting trustee at death, it will take custody of the trust assets and distribute everything according to the instructions in your will and trust. Assets already titled in the trust bypass probate; we handle the transfer and payout mechanics.

Your annual membership covers everything described above. If the day comes when the trust company actually steps in and does work for you, like paying your bills while you're in the hospital or settling your estate, that work is charged by the hour. You'll always see the rates before anything starts, and we'll walk you through them first. No surprises, ever.

Kinly is available in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Estate documents are drafted to match each state's specific laws, and our trust itself is sited in Washington (its governing law follows Washington State), which is where our partner trust company operates.