When you think of “estate planning”, you may imagine yourself in advanced age, sitting with your attorney as you carefully divide up your assets for your loved ones. However, putting off estate planning until your older years can have serious consequences for you and your family. If suddenly you pass on and your loved ones must make a decision on your behalf, they will be unable to properly execute choices on vital aspects of your life, including your medical preferences, paying bills, and end-of-life care. Below are three vital reasons why estate planning should be at the top of your agenda.
1) To Protect Your Beneficiaries
One of the most imperative reasons to craft your estate plan is to protect the ones you love. In the event of your departure, you want to make sure your family will be well taken care of, especially your children. With an estate plan, you can assign a temporary guardian or a permanent guardian for your children. This process eliminates any arguments or guesswork within your family about who should look after your offspring. An estate plan gives you and your loved one’s peace of mind knowing who will be taking care of them in your absence.
2) To Ensure Your Assets Are Properly Distributed
To confirm your assets are correctly dispersed, your decisions must be documented in a trust and will. Otherwise, your estate could be left up to the state to decide how your assets will be allocated, instead of your assets being distributed in the amount you see fit. Creating your estate plan can fix this. In the estate planning process, you must list your beneficiaries as preferred in your estate documents. What’s more, you will also need to assign beneficiaries with the providers of your life insurance policy, retirement accounts, and 401(k)s.
3) To Avoid Tax Burden
Did you know if you get an estate plan, you will also be protecting your loved ones from the grip of the Internal Revenue Service? With just a little bit of preparation, you can significantly reduce most, if not all, of the state and federal estate taxes as well as state inheritance taxes. However, without a plan in place, your beneficiaries may be faced with these expensive burdens. Save the financial headache with an estate plan and have your family benefit in more ways than one.
Purchase Instant Estate Surety Bonds Online
There’s no better time to start your estate plan than today! Colonial Surety offers a direct and digital way to obtain estate bonds, also known as probate bonds, personal representative bonds, administrator bonds, and executor bonds. The steps are easy — get a quote online, fill out your information, satisfy underwriting requirements, and enter your payment method. Print or e-file your bond from your office. Contact us to learn more about estate bonds.