Estate Planning Overview

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. - Abraham Lincoln

Estate planning allows you to control events that would otherwise control you and the ones you love. No other financial planning process focuses on such a time in your life--namely, your incapacity or death--when you can have absolutely no control over events unless you have given careful forethought to your desires and documented your instructions.

The primary purpose of estate planning is to prepare for the time when you are virtually or completely out of the picture. If done right, estate planning allows you to direct and manage what happens around you when you are incapacitated on your death bed, or even dead and buried. This is really an awesome power.

If you don't take time for estate planning, you will allow events to control you and your loved ones at a critical, and often chaotic time, of transition. In a worst-case scenario, you may suffer extended incapacity before death, during which your family is unable to make medical and financial decisions on your behalf. Upon your death, your estate could spend years in probate in the hands of a person who is a stranger to you, and your assets could be depleted by probate costs, contests for assets, creditor claims, and taxes.

If you are prepared to accept your own mortality, and you prefer order over chaos in handling your personal financial affairs, consider the following materials that summarize the estate planning process:

• Estate Planning Inventory: Any good planning effort begins with a good dose of self-examination and self-assessment. Learn why the same applies to the estate planning process.
• Overcoming Incapacity: It is a fact of life that one's death does not always happen suddenly. Find out why the estate planning process also involves financial and medical decision-making safeguards in the event a person becomes incapacitated.
• What Happens When You Die: Life goes on for your loved ones after your death. Get a glimpse of what can happen to your estate after you are gone.
• Handling the Estate: Find out about the duties and responsibilities of those given the task of administering an estate and managing the personal affairs of the deceased.
• Probate: Learn about what can happen to your estate as it winds its way through the legal proceeding known as probate.