Written by Hi, it’s Dre Griggs with Obsidian Wisdom. Today we answer the question, What are the three main priorities of an estate plan? When it comes to your estate plan, we all have many goals that we want to accomplish, but for the most part, they boil down to three main things. And we’ll go through each of them and we’ll unpack a few ways that you can make sure your estate plan accomplishes your goals.
Priority 1: Ensuring Your Assets Go to the Right People
When it comes to an estate plan, the first thing that you want to ensure is that your stuff goes to the right people. What stuff are you talking about? It really could be anything. If you think of it one way, we’re really borrowing everything. The Bible talks about us being stewards of the things of this earth. And we want to be good stewards. It also says a good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children.
Now, I do know there are some who will say, “Oh, I’m not going to leave anything to my kids once I figured this whole thing out. The growth that I went through, I don’t want to ruin that for them. I just want them to kind of struggle and figure it out on their own.” The good news is if you do not put a proper estate plan in place, they would lose it anyways. As you guys know, upwards of 90 percent of generational wealth is gone by the third generation.
Priority 2: Granting Authority to Make Decisions on Your Behalf
The second main goal of an estate plan is to ensure that the right people have the authority to make decisions on your behalf. There are a few reasons that this would happen. The most common one is what we would call an incapacity plan. It’s just as we get a little bit older that some of the financial decisions may not make sense to be in our hands. But often what happens is as we do get older and it becomes apparent that we need a little bit of help. That’s normally going to be the time that you would want to be able to say, “I have someone that is going to help make the decisions with me.”
Priority 3: Clearly Defining Your Beneficiaries
Our third and final priority is to have your beneficiaries clearly defined. As we mentioned earlier, there are some documents where you can choose the beneficiary right up front. If you have that ability, go ahead and make sure you have the right beneficiaries in place. If it is a document that you cannot select a beneficiary, then what you will need is a will. The will outlines anything that you can’t directly say, “I want this to go to Dre.” Once you have a will and you decide who gets them, that is one less thing that you have to worry about.
Final Thoughts
Having a well-crafted estate plan is essential for ensuring that your assets are distributed according to your wishes and that the right people have the authority to make decisions on your behalf. By prioritizing these three main goals – ensuring your assets go to the right people, granting authority to make decisions on your behalf, and clearly defining your beneficiaries – you can have peace of mind knowing that your estate plan is in order. Take the time to periodically review and update your estate plan to adapt to any changes in your life circumstances. A comprehensive estate plan is a key aspect of creating a wealthy retirement and securing a legacy for future generations.
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