When you create an estate plan, you’re probably starting with a frame of you and your beneficiaries as the core people involved. However, this is not the full scope of everyone involved in your estate planning process.

There are four fiduciaries responsible with the entire estate planning process and they are known as an agent, an executor, a trustee, and a health care representative. An agent under a power of attorney makes financial decisions on behalf of the person who created this document. This is usually a spouse or child but can be different persons based on whether or not there is a business at stake.

A trustee’s primary role is to invest trust assets and to make distributions in accordance with the terms of the trust document. Usually a friend or family member is selected to serve in this role. A health care representative is the appointed legal agent to make medical decisions if the principal is unable to do so. These may be end of life decisions but it is not limited to end of life decisions.

All four of these people can play an important role in the estate planning process. They might play various roles in your estate plan at different times but all four of them should be considered important components of your overall planning strategy. Schedule a time to meet with an experienced estate planning lawyer to talk about your next steps.

One important component of protecting your family is thinking about how to use life insurance beneficiaries. Beneficiaries are those people who are entitled to receive your assets if and when something happens to you. The primary purpose of purchasing a life insurance policy is to protect your loved ones and give them funds they can use immediately when you pass away.

You might name both a primary and a contingent beneficiary to do this but the decision about who to appoint in this role is not always an easy one. Think about why you have life insurance in the first place, which people rely on you financially and would have difficulty paying ongoing bills if you passed away. What family members or other individuals would need financial support that would cover costs associated with your death, such as final burial and funeral expenses. 

If you would like to leave money to a beneficiary of your choice, you might also divide up this death benefit accordingly. Set aside a time to meet with your estate planning lawyer to discuss how your life insurance policy works in connection with or needs to be considered as part of your overall planning strategy. 

A lawyer can help answer many of your most common questions and help you decide who to name as beneficiaries. Life insurance is just part of your estate planning strategy, and it can work entirely separate from or as a complement to your will. When you work with an attorney who has an annual or regular estate planning strategy review, you will be able to discuss updating beneficiaries and making other changes at that time.       

It’s well worth it to look at your financial accounts if it’s been years since you have done so. Up to date beneficiary designations are extremely important because even though you hope nothing happens to you, you want the beneficiaries of your choosing to receive those assets in the event of an accident are unexpected illness.

The original people designated as beneficiaries on things like your life insurance policy or your retirement plan might have changed especially if your family structure has changed due to a marriage or divorce.

If you’re married you can almost always change the beneficiary of your accounts without getting your spouse’s permission. If you pass away during a pending divorce, for example, your accounts will almost always go to the beneficiary, not the spouse. There are exceptions to this including IRAs, other tax-deferred accounts and 401(k)s.

These require the signature of a spouse to change beneficiary because they are governed by federal law.

With online accounts, it’s a good opportunity to remind yourself when doing your taxes each year to evaluate your beneficiary designations and verify that everything is up to date. Meeting with an experienced estate planning lawyer can help you avoid many of the most common mistakes in this process.

The addiction epidemic has touched many families throughout the country and it is certainly worth considering if you have loved ones that you wish to leave assets behind to but are concerned about the risks. Unfortunately, many families today have to deal with the pain and challenges of a loved one suffering from addiction, whether it’s alcohol, drugs or other substances.

Leaving an inheritance to a person with a past or present addiction requires careful consideration from the support of an experienced estate planning attorney. Outright amounts can be detrimental and destructive whereas disinheriting them entirely could block them from getting the support that they need to battle their addiction.

Your professional advisors as well as your estate planning attorney should all be consulted when talking about estate planning for someone with addiction. A trust is one of the most valuable and helpful tools for accomplishing your goals. Setting up a trust to hold particular assets for the benefit of a beneficiary with an addiction could help support their overall recovery.

A trust protects the beneficiary from their creditors and from themselves. It provides specific directions for a trustee who manages the assets inside the account to determine when and how distributions are made to the beneficiary. A trust could provide for basic needs, such as food, shelter, and medical care.

The trustee can also be instructed to make those payments on behalf of the beneficiary rather than giving the funds to the beneficiary. Furthermore, your trust can outline provisions for counselling, treatment, and rehabilitation if needed. Schedule a consultation with an estate planning lawyer today to learn more.

 Although your will and other estate planning documents can spell out your wishes, they might not cover everything. Beneficiary forms are used to designate who you wish to receive certain pieces of property when you pass away. Many of these pass outside of your will and can therefore, only be updated when you make changes to these forms.

The following four steps can help you accomplish these goals:

1. Check your insurance and retirement accounts since these are the once that most frequently have beneficiary designations, which will outweigh what’s inside a will.
2. Don’t leave any beneficiary sections on forms blank since this could mean that when the account goes through probate it will be distributed based on the state’s rules for who gets that property.
3. If you forget the beneficiaries that you’ve named on accounts or policies created many years ago, you’ll want to make sure that you update these on an annual basis.
4. Name contingent beneficiaries. These are people who will receive the assets inside the account if your primary beneficiary passes away before you do and you are not able to update the primary beneficiary designation.      

Do you need help with this or other aspects of your estate plan? Contact a New Jersey estate planning lawyer to get a personalized walkthrough of your current plan and to start the process of defining your new goals and intentions.