Your estate plan begins with a Will
Every estate plan begins with a Will. This is the first, most essential document. It becomes the instructions for how your money and possessions will be distributed after you have passed on. Powers of attorney are also essential documents. They give control of your assets and your healthcare to someone else if you become unable to direct your own affairs. These documents are what make up a traditional estate plan.
If you die without an estate plan your loved ones don’t automatically inherit everything. Instead, the government decides who your beneficiaries are, and how your assets are divided up. If a person does have an estate plan, then most often it is the traditional kind, made up of a Will and Powers of Attorney, but nothing else. It is always true that some planning is better than no planning at all.
What is also true, is that a traditional estate plan can fail you and leave your loved ones struggling.