1st Quarter 2026 Commentary

Is it Time to Revisit Your Estate Documents?

Do you ever wish you could spend a little more time thinking about your end-of-life decisions? Or have you been hoping that you could bring up a really awkward topic with your kids at this year’s Thanksgiving Dinner? If so, then estate planning may be just the thing for you!

Setting aside the tongue-in-cheek comments, it is our experience that estate planning (wills, trusts and related documents) is the sort of thing that everyone “means to get to” but that too often gets put on the back burner – sometimes until it’s too late. While we are not attorneys and can’t give specific legal advice, especially in a broad communication like this one, we can let you know some of the basic documents and instructions that you should consider having in place. A good attorney can help you structure these documents to create a clear picture of your intentions and reduce or eliminate conflicts, questions, and costs surrounding what you want done.

We recommend a few documents that are intended to clarify your wishes in case you are still living but cannot make these decisions for yourself. These include:

1) A Power of Attorney –

This document names the person who is legally authorized to make medical and/or financial decisions on your behalf. It is possible to name different people. For example, if one of your adult children is a banker and another is a nurse or a doctor, you could name one as your financial Power of Attorney and the other as your medical Power of Attorney.

2) A “Living Will” or “Advance Directive” –

This document is something of a ‘pre-decision’ for certain circumstances. For example, if you are being kept alive artificially and can no longer recognize your family, the Living Will documents your preference of what you would like done.

The rest of the documents below should be in place to clarify your wishes for your assets upon your death.

A Will or Trust –

The will or trust is the ‘centerpiece’ of your estate planning documents. Generally speaking, you will choose one of the two types of documents.

a.) A will may be best if your circumstances are fairly straightforward. It is usually less expensive than a trust, but does not cover as many potential circumstances. Anything that has to pass according to instructions in your will could be subject to probate, which is the public legal proceeding for determining if your will is valid and then implementing its terms. However, many states have rules in place for an expedited probate process for estates below a certain threshold of assets or complexity.

b.) A trust allows for much more detailed control of how your assets are disbursed, but is generally more expensive than a will. A trust is especially good in the case where a beneficiary cannot handle the funds. Common situations could be that the beneficiary is a minor, is irresponsible or has special needs. In the last case, it may be especially important to have a “Special Needs Trust” to ensure that an inheritance does not cause a beneficiary to be disqualified from any assistance they are getting from government agencies. A trust is also generally better than a will for dealing with contingencies, like what happens to a beneficiary’s share if you and that beneficiary pass away at the same time. Anything that passes by a trust will generally avoid probate.

c.) Your executor or successor trustee is the person or company that you have designated to implement the instructions in your will or trust. The choice of who this should be is far more situational than can be covered in a newsletter like this one. But we would mention that you will want your documents to be relatively easy for this person to find when they need them.

Beneficiaries –

a.) Many types of assets – like insurance, retirement accounts, and potentially even your home – can have beneficiaries. Others – like bank accounts or non-retirement investment accounts – technically cannot have beneficiaries, but can instead have “Payable on Death (POD)” or “Transfer on Death (TOD)” designations, which usually operate similarly to a beneficiary designation. The beneficiary designation indicates who should receive that asset upon your death. This will generally avoid probate even if you do not have a trust. It is important to make sure your beneficiaries reflect your desires for which individuals (or entities in the case of trusts or charities) should receive your assets and in what proportions. You will also want to make sure that your beneficiary designations do not contradict your will or trust instructions.

Keep your beneficiaries up to date! We recommend an annual review of your beneficiary designations to ensure that everything is still as you intend. It might surprise you how often we find that we need to make updates with our clients when we do these beneficiary reviews!

Related Considerations –

a.) Life Insurance – It is important to periodically review your life insurance coverage to make sure that it is appropriate to protect those who depend on you financially.

b.) Charitable Bequests – If you are inclined to leave some of your assets to a charity there may be a variety of options worth exploring. At the most basic, you may be able to save on taxes by leaving the charity their portion from your Traditional Retirement Accounts.

Obviously, the subject is much deeper than could be covered in a few paragraphs.

But hopefully the basics outlined above can help get you started down the path to making sure that the people you care about have a clear roadmap. Done well, these documents can help provide clarity and reduce delays and costs for those you care about.

Please Note

When it comes to how frequently you should monitor your investments, there are two unhealthy extremes, with ‘never looking’ at one end of the spectrum and ‘obsessively looking’ at the other end. May we suggest using our quarterly commentary as a prompt to review your accounts, helping you avoid both extremes? You can review your current accounts by logging into www.cirstatements.com. If you have never logged into that site, please call our office and we will be happy to help you register.

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