Estate planning should be comprehensive to offer the best protection. In any good estate plan, you are going to have multiple legal documents that serve different purposes.
Your estate plan should have many components including:
- The will
- Trusts
- Guardianship designations
- Medical care documents
- Life insurance information
- Burial and funeral wishes
- Power of attorney
These are some of the components that you may want to have in your estate plan. To have a comprehensive estate plan, it is important to understand how these legal documents will protect you and those who stand to inherit your estate.
Avoiding probate court
One of the main reasons to have a comprehensive estate plan is because you will be able to avoid probate. Probate is expensive and takes up much of the time of those you care about during a time of grief. In probate, the court has to determine who should inherit the estate and make sure that any debts are paid. This may result in assets being spent in ways you didn’t intend for them to be, which could hurt your heirs or beneficiaries.
A comprehensive estate plan protects your interests
Comprehensive estate planning protects your interests by making sure that your wishes are carried out in life and following your death. Your plan will protect you if you’re injured and can’t make your own wishes known. It will also be certain to establish the order in which you’d like the estate distributed to your beneficiaries.
Life insurance policies may be sent directly to trusts to protect the funds against being spent too quickly or in ways you didn’t intend. Your burial and funeral wishes can be made known, so that your wishes will be carried out when you can’t state them yourself any longer.
As you can see, having many components to your estate plan makes sure that all topics surrounding your illness or death are addressed the way you would want them to be. This is an excellent method of preserving your estate while being able to establish your wishes at the same time.