Healthcare can be a daunting prospect for seniors, namely because health issues can creep up as people age, and because Medicare comes with a lot of hidden costs that seniors aren't well-prepared for. However, if there's one health-related expense that can really catch retirees off-guard, it's none other than long-term care.
Many people equate estate planning with older people who have more assets and more to protect. However, that doesn’t mean younger people should ignore the benefits of estate planning. According to Caring.com, only 34% of adults ages 35 to 44 have a will and 18% of adults ages 18 to 34 have one.
Seventy-seven percent of respondents in a recent survey said estate and legacy strategies were important for everyone, not just wealthy individuals, yet only 24% said they had taken the basic step of designating beneficiaries for all of their accounts.
A woman was clear about her wishes before she had a stroke — in the case of a serious medical event, she did not want a feeding tube. She had even expressed her wishes in an advance directive, years before her stroke.
When you create a living trust, you also sign a pour-over will. One of the main benefits of a trust is avoiding a court proceeding on death called probate, which is when wills are used.
We all have witnessed how children have a difficult time understanding why one sibling was treated differently. To overcome this, parents will make the well-intentioned mistake that fair and equal are the same.
When the ‘Queen of Soul’ Aretha Franklin died last year, it was believed that she hadn’t prepared any kind of estate plan, including a last will and testament. However, a few months ago, three handwritten wills were found in her home near Detroit. Two were in a locked closet and one was stuffed beneath the cushions of a couch!
Medicaid recipients over the age of 55 are expected to repay the government for many medical expenses—and states will seize houses and other assets after those recipients die, in order to satisfy the debt.
We are programmed to contribute the “max” to our retirement accounts and we disregard, or do not understand, the pitfalls of an improperly filled-out beneficiary forms.
Thanks to the Internet, everyone has the ability to draft wills, trusts and a variety of other legal documents. Many documents can be produced for less than $100, requiring only a few mouse clicks and filled-in blanks.
