Families with Young Children

What do you need to know?

Estate Planning for Families with Young Children

Many parents may think ahead enough to ask family members or friends to watch their children if something were to happen to them. But what often gets left out, are the legal documents that are necessary to do so. A question that all parents should ask themselves is this: Have I prepared the necessary paperwork to grant my family members or friends legal power to take care of my children, if I were unable to do so?

Is Planning Really Necessary?

For many young couples, estate planning is not high on their to-do list. Some think that the risk of a severe accident or illness happening to them is incredibly low, so they may not do any planning. However, the truth is, all it would take is one impaired driver, or one severe illness, to change a person's life forever.

The odds of a car accident or a fire in your home may be minimal, still many, if not all of us, carry insurance to protect us if something were to happen to our car or home. The question is, if you are protecting those assets, have you also done planning to protect your most precious assets in your home, your children? Without proper planning, the outcome could be catastrophic to any family.

Reasons to Plan

There are many reasons to do estate planning when you have a family. Not only do you have to think about whom you would name as Guardians for your children, but you also must consider beneficiary designations for your spouse and children.

A typical spouse usually names their spouse as a beneficiary, whether it be on their life insurance policy, investment accounts, retirement accounts, bank accounts, etc. What is often forgotten, is who should be the contingent beneficiaries of those accounts. You may want to put your children down as contingent beneficiaries, however, children under the age of eighteen, simply cannot inherit this money.

So how can your children inherit that money on those accounts without getting a conservatorship set up, that would use their inheritance funds to pay for legal fees, for their conservatorship?

Whom would you want to act in your behalf if you were incapacitated and not able to make health care decisions for yourself?

How do you want your assets to be distributed?

Who would you want to act as your Personal Representative if you or your spouse are unable to act?

Are there additional complications in the family that need to be thought out, such as, blended families, divorced parents, non-biological children, problem children or special needs children?

There are many questions to think about. But the good news is, that there are many different ways that you can plan for your situation. At Schneider Rasche LLC, we can assist you in creating an estate plan that will help protect your families future. Call us today at (503) 241-1215 or contact us to discuss how we can help you create a plan specifically for you.