4 Elements You Need To Include In Your Estate Plan
When you create an estate plan, you need to make sure that you look after more than just your home with your estate plan. You need to make sure that you look after your entire family with your estate plan.
Long-Term Care Plan
As you get up in age, you need to make sure that your estate plans includes instructions on how you want to be taken care of as you age. Long-term care in an assisted living facility or nursing home can be expensive, so you need to make sure that your estate plan details how to provide for you and your spouse's long-term care needs. Perhaps you want your home sold, or perhaps you have specific stock you want sold to finance your long-term care needs.
Living Will
No one knows what health challenge they will face as they age or how these health challenges will impact one's ability to communicate. That is why you want to have a living will.
A living will is where you can document your health wishes if you are not able to communicate your health wishes in the future. This is where you write about if you want to be put on a ventilator or what you want your family to do if you are declared brain dead. This is where you also write down what type of end-of-life care you want to receive.
A living will can make you ask yourself some really thoughtful questions about your beliefs about end-of-life care. Don't put this document off. Remember, you can change and update it over time.
Named Beneficiaries on Accounts
Next, there are a fair amount of accounts that allow you to put named beneficiaries on the accounts. Named beneficiaries are the individuals who the ownership of the account is transferred to in the event of your death. Accounts that generally allow you to add named beneficiaries include retirement plans, bonds, brokerage accounts, and stock accounts. Contact an accounting service, like Vlasac John M & Co, for more information.
If you choose to put named beneficiaries on your accounts, make sure that you keep up with those accounts. If your relationship with those people change, or if they pass away, you are going to want to change the names on those accounts right away.
Life Insurance
Finally, part of your estate plan should include a life insurance policy. Term life insurance policies only cover you for a specific period, like between the ages of forty to sixty. Whole life insurance policies cover you your entire life until you pass away. Oftentimes, companies will allow you to turn a term life insurance policy into a whole life insurance policy as you age. In your will, you can set up more specific instructions about how you want your life insurance policy to be used to take care of your family.