Estate & Financial Planning

One critical part of being prepared is having your personal finances and estate planning in place.

When it comes to personal finances we believe an emphasis should be made on getting out of debt. Along
with getting out of debt, you should be building up your savings combined with prudent investing and
hedging strategies for those savings. You should also be living below your means from day to day and have
in place appropriate insurance policies to cover potentially large losses or demands on your assets.

When it comes to having your estate plan in place we believe that everyone should at least have a Will. In
your Will, you provide for any specific bequests you may want to make, name a guardian for any minor
children you may have and make final disposition of your remaining assets. If you have an estate that is
large enough to be subject to federal estate taxes (3.5 Million in 2009) then you will also need some tax
planning in order to insure you pay the least amount of taxes necessary to still achieve your gifting goals. In
some states where the probate process is onerous you may want to use a revocable living trust to minimize
or avoid probate. In other states where probate is not so onerous you may be able to accomplish all your
tax and estate planning goals in your Will. If you own real property in multiple estates you may want to
consider owning that property in such a way as to avoid having multiple probates in different estates upon
your death.

There are numerous estate planning strategies which are primarily focused on minimizing or eliminating
taxes (income and "transfer taxes" - i.e. estate and gift and generation skipping taxes). Lifetime wealth
transfer can offer many tax benefits.

In addition to having a Will, we recommend you have in place a General Power of Attorney document in
which you name someone as your agent for making financial decision on your behalf should you be unable
to make such decisions for yourself. This power of attorney document can be effective when executed or
become effective in the future upon your incapacity (we call this a "springing" general power of attorney).

Along with a general power of attorney document you should have a medical or health care power of
attorney document. This is different from a medical directive or Living Will. A medical power of attorney
document appoints an individual to act as your agent and make medical decisions on your behalf should
you be unable to do for yourself. Since the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA) of 1996 it is advisable to have what we call a HIPAA release clause to insure your medical
power of attorney agent has full access to what may otherwise be protected health information.

Finally, a complete set of estate planning documents should also include a medical directive or Living Will.
In a living will you define what you would like to happen to you should you be in a persistent vegetative
state, or have an irreversible terminal illness. Requirements for Wills, Living Wills and Power of Attorney
Documents are often defined by specific state statutes and we recommend you contact a local estate and
tax planning attorney to have these documents drafted for you.

We hope you find products on this site that will help you be prepared to meet your day to day physical
needs should disaster strike. We are adding products all the time so please bookmark our site and visit
often.