A. Estate plans deal with the topics that no one likes to think or talk about - accidents, illness, the inability to care for ourselves and, ultimately, death. Death combined with money can bring out the worst in people. By putting your plan in place, you will be saving your loved ones a great deal of difficulty and anguish that you probably aren’t even aware of.
Here are a few examples to show why it's important to have an estate plan:
- Die without a will and, in some states, your spouse could receive as little as half of your money.
- Die without a will and an unmarried partner would likely be left with nothing, including the home the two of you currently share.
- If you are unable to handle your affairs due to an accident or illness, no one will be able to handle your finances unless you created and put a power of attorney in place.
- If you have an accident that prevents you from communicating, your medical wishes cannot be honored unless you state them in a living will and have appointed someone to make decisions via a health care power of attorney document.
In our next blog post, we will discuss what are the components of an estate plan.