Generation to Generation

You never know when you might need to make a decision about your own health care. When your health is mostly fine, the decision-making process seems uncomplicated and manageable – choices will be made by you, with the support of your doctors, nurse practitioners, and likely a Google search or two. But what if, due to an accident or sudden illness, you need medical attention and your ability to think and communicate for yourself evaporates in an instant? Who steps in then? It all depends on whether you have planned in advance.

If you already understand what a typical estate plan looks like, you can skip to the next paragraph. Put simply, it is more than just a will. Instead, a typical estate plan contains four documents: a will, revocable trust, health care proxy and power of attorney. The health care proxy and power of attorney are designed to operate during your lifetime, while the will and revocable trust control how your property is dealt with after your death. The will tends to be a relatively simple document by which you give away your personal belongings and name the personal representatives who are to administer your estate. The trust, on the other hand, distributes the balance of your assets among the people (and charities) you care about and names the trustees who will administer the trust property according to your wishes. The trust is necessarily more complex than the will, because it is where the tax planning provisions are found.