A colleague of mine recently told me that having a strong estate plan is like insuring your family. I thought that was a great analogy.
Most of us spend thousands of dollars a year on insurance: car insurance, house insurance, health insurance, and life insurance. And while some of these only protect assets, the latter protects you and your family in emergency situations and at death.
Estate planning is the same. You see, healthcare documents can protect you during your life to ensure that someone can make medical decisions for you if you are not able. It can also grant them access to your medical information as well as your decisions regarding life support measures in certain circumstances.
Your estate plan can also ensure that someone is available to help manage your financial assets if you are no longer able to. If not granted the power to do so with a financial power of attorney or trust, a family member would likely end up in petitioning a court to appoint them as your conservator (a time-consuming and expensive process).
And perhaps most importantly, if you have minor children or children who just aren’t great at handling money, your trust can outline how you want your successor trustee to financially provide for your children. For example, maybe you want to restrict funds to only being spent on medical or education expenses until they reach age 25. Or perhaps you want monies left to your adult children to be used during their retirement years. Or you can instruct your trustee to provide for your children’s guardian, or maybe include drug-testing language if you have a child who already has struggled with addiction.
You probably have insurance to repair your car if you get into an accident. And you likely have health care insurance to pay for your medical bills if you get sick. But have your insured that your family will be able to act for you in a time of crisis? Have you insured that the life insurance money you are leaving your children will be protected for them and spent the way you would like?
Estate planning is like insurance. You can purchase basic liability or you can purchase comprehensive coverage. If you want to ensure you and your family are truly protected, we hope you will contact us.
We help families with comprehensive insurance for their family. It’s just that we call it estate planning.