For Estate Planning, Checking A List Is Basic Foundation

Two things tend to prevent many people who should do so from making an estate plan.

One is that few feel they have the necessary wealth to bother. The other is that, of necessity, it forces people to contemplate the end of their lives.

Almost everyone has sufficient belongings and holdings to make an estate plan worthwhile and everyone, at least so far, is going to die, so get over it and get on with it.

A recent article on the website insurancenews.net by Brian A. Beasley offers up a checklist of areas that need to be considered when preparing an estate plan. These include:

• A will
• Power of attorney
• Health care proxy
• Property distribution and trusts
• Life insurance
• Charitable giving
• Business interests
• Preserving wealth

“This checklist is a valuable tool to use with clients as it concisely covers the paramount factors to be considered when developing an estate plan,” according to Beasley.

Although not every aspect of the list will apply for every estate, a competent professional will at least go over all of these areas with a client in the run-up to completing an initial plan, always with the proviso that such a document will require updating from time to time.

“Just one aspect of estate planning can hold a wide range of complexities and scenarios to account for,” according to the article “Using a checklist like this helps ensure that we uncover and address all of them, and helps provide clients with greater peace of mind.”