It Starts With a Will
A good estate plan only starts with well-drafted documents.
A retirement account can be the key to long-term financial security. It also can be a person's largest financial asset, if not in the present at least in the future.
It is such a simple question when you are completing a life insurance policy application. Who do you want to receive the death benefit in the event of your death?
Let's face it. We are all getting older. Life gives all those under the age of 30 a psychological "immunity" to any worry about that fact of life.
One estate planning tool that gets an inordinate amount of attention in the popular press is the "living trust." From some articles one would think that this one legal instrument can cure every estate planning problem.
It is a good news/bad news joke. The good news is that people are living longer. The bad news is that people are living longer - and when they get "too" old they are not able to live independently.
When I first wrote my newspaper column about "saving for college" it was August, the time for many students to leave for a new year in college. It was too late for those students to start a college fund to pay tuition costs for that year.
There are many medical situations that are not life or death, but the patient is not able to make and communicate a decision as to treatment. That is where a Healthcare Power of Attorney can be absolutely essential and a Living Will is irrelevant.
I have often written that probate in Georgia is not the terrible ordeal that people fear in other states. However settling the affairs of a deceased person is real work.
A divorce is almost always an emotionally traumatic experience and often the concluding event to troubled times. Worrying about estate planning after struggling through the legal system to obtain the divorce may seem like adding insult to injury.