A key part of financial planning is estate planning. If you’ve got a solid financial plan, but your estate plan isn’t organized well (or doesn’t exist at all!), you might want to consider looking into putting your plan together. It’s a way to pass your hard work down to the next generation, and with the right design, you might be able to preserve that wealth and boost up your family for many years.
If you’re just getting started on your estate plan journey, here are 5 mistakes that people can make when designing their estate plan:
- Not talking with family and friends
No one loves talking about their will. But it might be a good idea to inform your family and friends what plans you have in place for when you pass away. Of course, you ultimately get to make the decisions, but it can still be helpful to hear the perspectives of your family members.
- Only having one beneficiary
Life is complicated. And if you have only made one estate plan naming one beneficiary, things can get messy if that one beneficiary isn’t around when you’re gone. A good way to help mitigate this might be to designate a primary beneficiary and then designate one or more contingent beneficiaries.
- Forgetting important legal information
If you haven’t chosen someone to give your Power of Attorney to in your financial or medical life, you may want to consider that. You may also want to consider choosing someone as a healthcare proxy. These choices will allow you to have control over situations where you otherwise can’t make decisions for yourself.
- Forgetting about final arrangements
What you want your funeral to look like is really up to you, and you can design it as a part of your estate plan. You may not care very much what it looks like, but if you do, you need to tell people what you want!
- Misunderstanding your children’s future
There are certain things that you can’t predict, especially when it comes to the choices your kids are going to make. So be careful when entrusting your kids to make what you think is the best choice for your gifts and heirlooms. You can’t always predict what they will do in the future, and they probably couldn’t either, so make sure there are plans and legally documented arrangements as a contingency plan.
When it comes down to it, estate planning is all about you and your legacy: what you want to happen with everything you’ve worked for, and making sure your legacy is left to those you care for, those who care for you, and that it lasts generations. Make sure it’s built around your wants and your needs. Consider reaching out to one of our financial professionals today for a complimentary review of your finances if you want to plan for a lasting legacy.
