4 Overlooked Items to Include in Your Estate Plan

Those with family businesses, especially those that have serviced numerous generations, understand the need to take into account the details. Several articles have listed common items that every client to include in their estate planning documents. But often there are a few pieces of the puzzle that regularly get mislaid, possibly due to evolving cultural norms or increased technology. 

Consider these forgotten items when meeting with your estate planning team:

• Incapacity
  • “The plan should prepare for your incapacity, not just for your death. It’s increasingly likely that the average person will experience one or more periods of incapacity during their lifetime. A trust can allow for the seamless management of assets during those periods of incapacity.”
• Management
  • If you pass away before your heirs are old enough or mature enough, assets may need to be kept in trust until such a time as they can take over the management of them.
• Divorce Protection
  • In today’s society, 50% of marriages end in divorce. Even if your heirs are currently happily married, it is a fact of life that that may not always be the case.
• Asset Protection
  • “The plan should consider whether the beneficiaries will have creditor issues. For maximum asset protection, the assets for the beneficiary can be left in a fully discretionary trust with a third-party trustee.”

See Amanda Radke, 4 Overlooked Items to Include in Your Estate Plan, Beef.com, August 15, 2018.