Back to School, Back to Basics: Is Your Estate Plan Up to Date?
Every school year brings changes. Your child may be starting kindergarten, heading into middle school, becoming a high school student, or preparing for college.
These milestones can be a good reminder to revisit your estate planning documents and ask whether they still make sense for your family today.
For parents, some of the most important questions to consider include:
Are the guardians named in your will still the people you would choose to care for your children?
Have your children grown or changed in ways that affect your wishes?
Are the people you have chosen to make financial or healthcare decisions still the right choices?
Have your financial circumstances changed?
Are your beneficiary designations still accurate?
Have you purchased or sold significant assets?
Has anything changed in your family that should be reflected in your plan?
If you cannot confidently answer these questions, it may be time for an estate planning review.
Review Your Guardianship Choices
For parents of minor children, guardianship is one of the most important parts of an estate plan.
Your will can identify the person or people you would want to care for your children if you were no longer able to do so. But life circumstances can change.
Perhaps the person you originally selected has moved, experienced a major life change, or is no longer the best fit for your family. Maybe your children are older now and your priorities have changed.
Back-to-school season is a great opportunity to ask yourself:
If something happened to us, would the people named in our estate plan still be the people we want caring for our children?
If the answer is no or you're not sure, it may be time to revisit your plan.
Has Your Child Reached a New Milestone?
Children don't stay little for long. As they move through different stages of life, your estate planning needs may change too.
For families with young children, your focus may be on guardianship and protecting inherited assets.
For families with teenagers, you may be thinking more about preparing them for adulthood and making sure your estate plan continues to reflect their changing needs.
And when a child turns 18, parents should also understand that they generally no longer have the same automatic ability to make healthcare or financial decisions for their adult child.
Young adults may benefit from having documents such as a healthcare proxy and power of attorney in place.
A new school year can be the perfect reminder to make sure your family has the appropriate legal documents in place for every stage of life.
Don't Forget About Beneficiary Designations
Your estate plan is more than your will.
Certain assets, including retirement accounts, life insurance policies, investment accounts, and accounts with payable-on-death designations, may pass directly to the people you have named as beneficiaries.
That means it is important to make sure those designations are still correct.
Take a few minutes during your back-to-school reset to review:
Retirement account beneficiaries
Life insurance beneficiaries
Investment account beneficiaries
Payable-on-death accounts
Transfer-on-death designations
An outdated beneficiary designation can create unintended consequences for your loved ones.
Review Your Powers of Attorney and Healthcare Documents
Estate planning also helps protect you while you are living.
Your powers of attorney and healthcare documents can designate trusted individuals to make financial or medical decisions on your behalf if you are unable to make them yourself.
As part of your back-to-school estate planning checklist, consider:
Are the people I've named still the right people?
Do they know what I would want?
Have their circumstances changed?
Do I still have the right documents in place?
If you have not looked at these documents in several years, now may be a good time to review them.
Has Your Financial Picture Changed?
Back-to-school season can also be a good opportunity to take stock of your financial life.
Since you last updated your estate plan, you may have:
Bought or sold a home
Started or sold a business
Received an inheritance
Opened new investment or retirement accounts
Experienced significant financial growth
Acquired other valuable property
Changed your insurance coverage
Your estate plan should coordinate with your current assets and financial goals. If your financial picture has changed significantly, your estate plan may need to change with it.
Estate Planning Is Part of Taking Care of Your Family
Back-to-school season is all about preparing your family for what comes next. You buy the supplies, organize the schedule, complete the forms, and make sure everyone is ready for the year ahead.
Your estate plan deserves the same attention.
Having updated estate planning documents in place can help provide clarity and make difficult situations easier for the people you love. It allows you to make important decisions in advance instead of leaving your family to navigate them without guidance.
And you do not have to wait for a major life event to review your plan.
Sometimes, a new school year is simply the reminder you need.
Start the School Year With a Plan That Protects Your Family
As you get your family ready for another school year, add one more item to your September checklist: review your estate plan.
If it has been several years since you reviewed your will, trust, powers of attorney, healthcare documents, or beneficiary designations, this is a great time to make sure everything still reflects your family, your wishes, and your goals.
At Protected Roots Law, we help individuals and families create and maintain estate plans designed to grow with them through every stage of life.
Ready for a fresh start this fall? Contact Protected Roots Law to schedule an estate plan review and make sure your family is prepared for whatever comes next.
