There are very few truths in the world we live in and plenty of uncertainty. Among these truths are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, one more truth was left out of this declaration, death. The inevitable death is rarely talked or thought about. People want to think of themselves as invincible and think that by avoiding the topic it will never happen to them. In reality it is quite the opposite. The secret of living for eternity and making yourself and your legacy invincible is through proper planning for the inevitable.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to get your estate planning documents in order. Recently a client who I only recently inherited passes away before we had an opportunity to review his estate plan. It has caused me quite a bit of concern for the family because his deceased father was the beneficiary of a life insurance policy and his sister was the sole beneficiary of both an annuity and investment account. His brother was left out of any beneficiary arrangements. The client had a Will, but the family was unable to locate it. The client was unmarried and had no children, so the next of kin was both his brother and sister. The life insurance policy is going to paid out to his estate, go through probate, and after attorney fees and probate costs are taken out, the brother and sister will split the rest. If the client desired to leave the brother out entirely, his withies are not fulfilled. If he wanted his brother to get half of everything, his wishes aren’t granted because he doesn’t get half of the annuity and investment account. Either way, there is no way of knowing what the client truly wanted and frustrations and miscommunications develop between the family, creating friction between surviving brother and sister. The stress of the passing of a sibling is painful, the stress of the financial result may painfully split the family apart.
What we can learn from this, everyone needs to have their estate planning in order and review it on a regular basis. Give a copy of the documents to your expected executor, attorney, and financial advisor. This could involve either a fully fledged estate plan provided through an attorney, or simply a statement of wishes drafted by the individual. Anything is better than nothing. However, the time, energy, and resources put into your financial plan will determine how entact the plan will be. The more ambiguities, the more opportunity for court battles, and the more money will dissipate towards attorney fees. The first place to start is by making sure your beneficiary arrangements in your life insurance and retirement plans are how they should be. With regards to the rest, you can save some money by starting with some of these documents below and taking the completed versions to your estate planning attorney. Both your financial advisor and estate planning attorney can assist in helping you.
Rules: http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/853.pdf
Included in your estate planning documents should be Living Will and Health Care Power of Attorney. Just click the link here to find those documents.
http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/forms/AdvDirectives/ADFormsPOA.htm
Finally, I encourage everyone to create a “death kit”. Things to include in this kit are a list of all your assets, a list of you passwords to your accounts that you would want accessed by a trusted person, contact information of the people who you would want notified of your death (attorney, financial advisor, relatives, friends, pastor, business partner, etc), include your desired funeral arrangements, and finally your entire estate plan documents. Please take care of these things while you are alive, because once you aren’t you are dead. If you need advice on some good estate planning attorneys that I have done work with, please get in touch with me and I can introduce you.
Related articles
- Why Young Adults Should Have an Estate Plan (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
- Five Pitfalls Overlooked in Estate Planning (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
- Estate Planning: A Family Affair (risurreyhillsblog.wordpress.com)
World and Financial Advice 
Great blog John. My estate plan has not been updated for ten years,and it was created in Illinois. Are estate plan laws different in different states? Does the plan need a redo, or just an amendment?
Wisconsin is a community property state where Illinois is not. Therefore, depending on how your estate plan is currently structured you may just need an amendment, or you may need an entire redo. Regardless, it is always good to have someone review it every few years as laws are constantly changing. Although I am not an attorney, I always review my clients estate plan to make sure nothing looks out of place. When I see that things need adjustments, I bring in an attorney to draft the changes.