Delaware’s Recently Enacted Section 3345 Mandating that Trustees Provide "Beneficiary Well-Being Programs" Aimed at Enhancing Financial Literacy, Family Connection and Emotional Well-Being

Paul Hood and Jill Mastroianni recently published, Delaware’s Recently Enacted Section 3345 Mandating that Trustees Provide “Beneficiary Well-Being Programs” Aimed at Enhancing Financial Literacy, Family Connection and Emotional Well-Being, 2025. Provided below is an executive summary:

Delaware’s recently enacted beneficiary well-being trust law, Section 3345 of Title 12, introduces a novel approach to trust administration by mandating that trustees provide “beneficiary well-being programs” aimed at enhancing financial literacy, family connection, and emotional well0being. When affirmatively incorporated into a trust instrument, section 3345 compels trustees to fund and facilitate programs ranging from financial education to family retreats. A companion provision – Paragraph 32 to Section 3325 – broadens trustee powers by authorizing, rather than mandating, financial education services, even absent express trust language.

This newsletter explores the practical, legal, and tax consequences of optingin to Delaware’s beneficiary well-being trust law as well as the broadening of statutory trustee powers absent an opt-in, offering critical analysis and drafting suggestions for planners and fiduciaries. Among the recommendations for opt-in trusts and trustees: consider narrowing the scope of the statute in the trust instrument, explicitly define terms such as “family,” ensure HEMS-compliant distribution standards where appropriate, and account for the risks of taxable gifts, government benefit legislative action, the only option for avoiding the new statutory trustee power authorizing the trustee to provide financial education services, and to set its own compensation for doing so, requires drafting that affirmatively opts out of it. 

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/trusts_estates_prof/2025/05/delawares-recently-enacted-section-3345-mandating-that-trustees-provide-beneficiary-well-being-progr.html