Our previous post shared five estate planning suggestions or tips. Here are three additional “hints” that might help you better-manage your estate plan:
- Name and/or update your beneficiary designations on your retirement accounts and life insurance policies, both primary and contingents. We find that many people have named a primary beneficiary, but forget to name a contingent beneficiary. If this happens, the default contingent beneficiary is your Estate, resulting in unintended consequences, including the fact that an Estate is taxed at a higher rate than an individual. Please note that updating your will and trust is not the same as updating your beneficiary designations.
- Know that dividing money equally is typically easy, but that dividing tangibles equally can be difficult. Tangibles often evoke emotions and it can be difficult to discern its value. This being the case, many of the disputes that occur when someone passes evolve around tangibles. For this reason, it is important to talk about the distribution of those items in person, and then also to direct those distributions in writing so that the issue of unmet expectations can be addressed.
- Communicate your wishes with loved ones so that everyone is on the same page, whenever it is possible. If everyone understands your wishes, disputes are much less likely to happen.