Estate planning is about easing the burden of your death on your family and ensuring the future of your wealth is determined by you. Your family s future may depend on it. Authors: Alan Beugg, Brian Sullivan, Jenny Thompson Communicating my last wishes and leaving behind an efficient and clear plan for my family is the best gift I can give my loved ones. I have experienced first hand what a painful mess is left behind without one Making the decisions required to fulfil a comprehensive estate plan are very difficult, require strength and are one of the most important gifts to leave behind for your family. We have made those decisions for our family and we will help you to do the same. Clarity in a time of bereavement is for your most treasured asset your family. A concrete and efficient plan laying out the distribution of your wealth is the first gift you will leave your family after you die. If you do not make these decisions, the courts will. Their decisions will not reflect your desires. We have learned the importance of executing an estate plan correctly because we have done it for ourselves. We don t ask our clients to make decisions that we have not made for ourselves. We believe unless you have solved the problems your clients face for yourself you cannot possibly have the perspective needed to help you clients. A client of ours from Texas was involved in eight years of probate litigation because her mother s instructions were not clear in her estate plan. Our client and her family went If you don t make your intentions clear, you risk breaking apart the people you have worked your whole life to bring together. My parents worked hard and created some wealth for themselves, owned several properties and collected antiques. Before they died they neglected to make their intentions clear and my two sisters and I were left to sort out the pieces. As much as we love each other, we each had our own version of what our parents would have wanted and who received what. In the end our parent s fortune drove us apart. I don t want my children to go through that, so I created an estate plan. IFM Employee through eight years of unnecessary suffering, enormous legal fees and the inability to use what their mother had intended for them because the proper planning was not done. An estate plan must be done correctly by a team that has your best interest in mind. It is very important to create a plan that not only maps out the succession of your wealth but minimizes taxes while maximizing what you leave to your family and/or charity. To do this you need a team that involves your attorney, your CPA, and a consultant like IFM that can quarterback the process. IFM can help reduce the cost by completing the planning and the stress of trying to plan all of this on your own with these other professionals. Our clients do not pay an additional fee for IFM to quarterback this process. It is all part of IFM s sacred promise to put your interests first.
How to start planning? Call us. We will guide you through the process. The most important step in developing your estate plan and ensuring you and your family are protected is evaluating your current financial condition. Once we have created a summary of your net worth including your current assets, liabilities, insurance policies, and legal documents you will have the opportunity to analyze what has been done to protect your wealth and what needs to be done to protect it further. A detailed net worth summary is the key to identifying planning opportunities that will save you from potentially devastating consequences. As an example, after reviewing your current net worth statement we may find that you have named your beneficiaries incorrectly. It s a very common mistake with very devastating consequences. A client of ours parents were killed in a tragic car accident. The couple had put aside a great deal of their wealth into their retirement accounts. Unfortunately, their beneficiaries were not named correctly. The children, including our client, were forced to liquidate the accounts immediately and were subject to an estate tax on the sum as well as income taxation on the IRA distribution. If this common mistake had been identified while the parents were alive, the children would have inherited far more of the IRA s and assumed a lifetime of benefit. In addition to identifying inconsistencies, planning opportunities, and confirming all beneficiary designations, a summary is important because it provides an inventory for your assets, liabilities, and insurance policies for your executor, estate advisors and/or surviving beneficiaries. Creating a list of important contacts like the executor, attorney, accountant, corporate benefits, insurance benefits, online accounts and passwords (both bank and brokerage), income and expense information (pensions, annuities, bills, debts to settle) and location of your estate documents is essential. Regardless of the impetus an estate plan involves many benefits and should be comprehensive. Document Checklist: Documents Trusts Will Living Will Letter of Instruction Durable Power of Attorney Health Care Directive Questions to address? Who are my trustees? Who is my executor? Who do I want to authorize to act on my behalf/am I comfortable with whom I have named? Do I want to receive life support should I need it/ what type am I comfortable with? Who do I want to authorize to control my assets should I become unable to do so? (How would I like my assets to be distributed?) Who do I want to authorize to act on my behalf/am I comfortable with whom I have named?
Accounts All bank accounts w(ith) usernames/passwords Safety deposit box 401K accounts/ira/roth IRA/Pension/Annuities Social Security Information Brokerage Account/savings bonds/stock certificates Insurance Policies: Long term care, life, disability, health & car Other Documents Housing, land, cemetery deeds Mortgage documents Proof of Loans made Vehicle title and registration Business Contracts Marriage license/divorce papers Questions to Address? Have I provided contact information and relevant information? Have I provided location of keys/titled it correctly? Have I named beneficiaries? Will my spouse continue to receive pension payments/how will they be affected? Do my beneficiaries know what benefits they are entitled to? How to claim them? Does my spouse/beneficiary know who my advisor is/have contact information? Do they know how to gain online access to accounts? Are sufficient assets readily available to settle my debts/pay taxes? Questions to Address? Is my real estate titled efficiently/correctly? Will mortgage payments be made? Do I have paperwork to document loans made? Do I have an outstanding loan? How will it be paid? Have I placed these in a known location? Have I placed these in a known location? Last Will and Testament: Your Last Will and Testament declares an executor of your estate, designates a guardian for you minor children and provides an outline of how your assets will be distributed. To die without a will is to die intestate. If this occurs, the state will determine who should care for your minor children and your assets will pass according to your intestacy laws. In Colorado if you die without a will your estate will pass directly to your spouse, should your spouse be living. This will override any wishes you may have had to leave your children a portion of your estate. Creating a will completely avoids intestate laws and allows your estate to be passed on and distributed as you wish. In addition, your will can include provisions that create certain types of trusts upon your death. These trusts may provide several benefits such as estate tax reductions, asset protection and additional control over future distributions.
Revocable Living Trust: A Revocable Living Trust (RLT) is a legal document that functions much in the same way as a will, in fact it is often called a substitute for a will. However, unlike a will which must be reviewed by the probate court, a RLT enables your estate to avoid the probate process all together. This is ideal for a person who is concerned about privacy, legal fees and time associated with probate. An RLT also may, in an event of incapacity, assign the responsibility for management of trust assets to another individual. It is important to note that in order for a RLT to work effectively, you will need to retitle your assets from your individual name (or JTWROS, TIC, etc.) to your RLT. If you do not retitle your assets to your RLT and the trust assets remain in your individual name they will be subject to probate. This is an important detail that must be confirmed. Financial Durable Power of Attorney (DPOA): This is a legal document. It designates, if you ever become ill and incapacitated for a period of time, someone authorized to make financial decision on your behalf such as paying bills, authorizing transactions and managing your overall financial affairs. This person is known as your agent or attorney in fact. Unlike a standard Power of Attorney which becomes invalid upon your incapacity, this document may be made durable so that it remains in force throughout incapacity until your death or until it is revoked. Medical Directive: Advance medical directives enable you to plan for your medical treatment in advance of needing it. You may preauthorize specific medical procedures, and appoint another individual to make decision on your behalf. This document may include a Living Will, Healthcare Proxy, Medical Power of Attorney and Do Not Resuscitate Orders. Living Will (Health Care Declaration/Health Care Directive) This legal document specifies the type of lifesustaining medical treatment you would or would not like to receive. It may specify whether or not you would like to be placed on a ventilator, have a feeding tube, or be resuscitated. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Release. This form will enable your physician to discuss the details of your medical condition with another individual you designate without violating HIPAA privacy rules. Your Financial POA and/or Medical Directives may include this provision within the document which will eliminate the need for this form. Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Order, this directs medical professionals to refrain from preforming CPR in the event of heart failure. Health Care Power of Attorney (Medical POA/Health Care Proxy) This legal document appoints a person you would like to speak on your behalf with regard to making medical decisions in case of your incapacity. This document is used to enable your agent or attorney in fact to make types of decisions regarding your care outside of life sustaining measures. Review your life insurance: Life insurance is always put in place for a specific purpose. Many times as our circumstances change we neglect to change our life insurance with it. For example, many insurance plans are put in place to provide for the needs of a surviving spouse or a dependent child. As you retire and your children grow your needs will change and so should your plan. It may be time to consider setting up a survivorship life insurance policy which pays a death benefit upon the death of the surviving spouse to provide liquidity to pay estate taxes, to replace the assets that were used to pay estate tax or to create additional wealth for your heirs.
Summary of Document Purpose Event Document Purpose Incapacity Period (DPOA) Durable Power of Attorney (RLT) Revocable Living Trust Health Care Power of Attorney (HIPAA) Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act Designates someone the power to make financial decisions on your behalf. Allows your trustee to manage trust assets for you. Designates someone to make health care decisions for you. This allows medical information to be shared with your designated person(s) making decisions for you. Terminal Period Living Will This allows you to choose which life sustaining option you are comfortable with (feeding tube, ventilation, etc.). (DPOA) Durable Power of Attorney (DNR) Do Not Resuscitate Designates someone to make financial decisions on your behalf. Gives you the option not to receive CPR should you need it. Death Last Will & Testament Designates the executor of your estate, the guardian of your minor children & how your estate should be distributed. Revocable Living Trust Letter of Instruction This option may avoid probate, preserves privacy & protection. This document allows a level of detail as far as leaving specific items of personal property to specific people that a Will does not offer.
You have created an estate plan, now what do you do? Review it. Have us review it again. Then repeat that process each and every year. IFM, as the quarterback, is happy to meet with your family and explain the plan you have created, walk slowly with your heirs through the mechanics of the plan and be there when they need us. IFM s multi generational advisors are uniquely suited to serve your family for years to come. When you communicate your plan with your loved ones and name the location of the original documents to the appropriate individuals. Often the first place people think to keep their documents in in their safe deposit box. However, pay close attention to how your safe deposit box is titled In certain states if the box is titled in your name alone your executor will have to obtain a court order to retrieve the documents inside. In conclusion Estate planning eases the burden on your family during a time of bereavement and ensures the protection of your wealth and final wishes. Making the decisions required to fulfil a comprehensive estate plan are very difficult, require strength and are one of the most important gifts to leave behind for your family. Let us help you make the decisions we have for ourselves and countless clients before you.