It’s never too early to start thinking about long-term care. This umbrella term houses a range of services, from retirement and assisted living to senior health plans.
One of the most important long-term care necessities is estate planning. This solution ensures that your family’s financial needs are met after your passing. Recognizable terms include wills and trust.
Estate planning tools also ensure that specified funds go to your chosen charities, non-profits, and other causes close to your heart.
Here are a few key points for your estate planning checklist:
Be Clear About Your Wishes
First, start by outlining all your wishes for your estate.
Go into detail about the following:
- disbursements
- charities
- real estate
- valuable belongings (i.e., jewelry)
- stock and bonds
- other investments (like precious metals)
- retirement accounts
At this stage, you’ll want to consider someone as your will executor. This person should be a trusted family member or a professional executor. Often, an individual will pick one of their adult children; however, the responsibilities of being an executor pile up, especially, if there are a lot of assets.
If you have a particular estate planning company in mind, now is a good time to name that company in a document. Any document can be used as legal evidence should the estate go into probate for whatever reason.
Talk to a Financial Advisor
Once you draw up all your wishes into a document, take that document to a financial advisor or another estate planning professional. They will assemble the appropriate team to oversee the wishes of your estate.
A financial advisor can help you create a long-term care spending plan to ensure your estate money remains intact. For example, you may need funds to finance assisted living or in-home care. A financial advisor can help you organize (and categorize) all of your long-term care finances.
Another important job of a financial advisor is to calculate your estate taxes. Estate beneficiaries are responsible for paying taxes on estate assets once they’re inherited. You could also designate an estate planning team to oversee such matters after your passing.
Financial advisors also maintain consistent communication with estate beneficiaries to ensure taxes are paid and disbursements are received.
Manage Digital Assets With Estate Planning Tools
One overlooked point that’s gaining more importance is the subject of digital assets.
Cryptocurrency, for example, is a digital currency that’s bought and sold on the blockchain.
You can also hold NFTs, which are unique non-fungible tokens; these digital assets come with unique serial numbers and may appreciate in value. The best example of a valuable NFT would be a piece of digital artwork.
You should also make a plan for your social media accounts, email accounts, documents, cloud services, and any other password-protected program or device. After you pass, someone will need access to these accounts to retrieve information and intellectual property.
Start Organizing Your Estate
After reading this post, draw up a list of estate wishes you’d like carried out. Consider different financial advisory firms and estate planning tools as you brainstorm a plan. Next, talk to a real professional who can help you piece this puzzle together.
It’s important to keep reading up on this topic to ensure your long-term care planning is airtight. Follow the blog to always stay in the know!