The Top 5 Reasons People Avoid Estate Planning

Reason #1: I Don’t Plan on Dying. We understand death is never easy to talk about, and there’s no easy solution. Conversations about death are uncomfortable for all of us, but we believe creating an estate plan is acting now for those you love, so they can be taken care of later. The U.S. Social Security Administration found 3 out of 4 Americans 65 years or older won’t live to be 90. This is a difficult reality. We hope you all live to be 100! But we are here to help you and your family ensure a comprehensive estate plan is in place if that doesn’t happen.

Reason #2: I Don’t Have Enough Money to Leave Anyone. The need for a comprehensive estate plan is not contingent on the size of your estate. Read this short article we previously published sharing a few reasons why it’s important to have an estate plan, regardless of how much money you have.

Reason #3: I Don’t Want to Pay for it. We recommend revocable living trusts for most clients; and yes, they cost more than a simple non-tax wise will. But, the cost to publicly probate an estate costs time (9 months or more) and money, 5-10% of the assets. A revocable trust is going to save your family time (days instead of months) and money (less than 2%) while providing more peace of mind.

Reason #4: I Don’t Want to Talk about Family. We all have difficult family dynamics that aren’t easy to talk about, but unfortunately the law doesn’t always account for every family dynamic. If you don’t have an estate plan in place, your hard earned assets accumulated over many years could end up going to family or others that you’d never want to receive them. It’s far better to have the difficult conversations now, and ensure you have input on where your hard earned assets end up.

Reason #5: Urgent vs. Important. Most are busy, and often act depending on what’s urgent vs what’s important. Urgent things demand immediate attention, like an important phone call, dinner burning, or an accident. Estate planning is important, but only becomes urgent when a life threatening event happens to you or someone in your family. But then it’s likely too late.