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To assist the public in understanding why estate planning is such a vital component of financial wellness and what makes up a good estate plan, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution in 2008 naming the third week of October each year as National Estate Planning Awareness Week. This year’s celebration occurs October 20-26.

We encourage you to take advantage of this week to examine your own estate plan. As you do so, here are four questions you should develop the answers to:

1. What are your estate planning goals?

Many successful people credit their goal setting as a foundational part of their success. Similarly, your estate plan needs to be written to achieve any number of goals you have for the use of your assets. Some of those goals can include:

• Supporting your surviving spouse in a manner to which they are accustomed
• Supporting your dependents, relatives, and even long-term employees who were instrumental to your success
• Maintaining your business or family farm through the next generation
• Supporting those charitable organizations that made a difference in your life

2. What will happen should your health significantly decline?

You can control how your finances are managed and how health care decisions are made through the wise use of power of attorney designations.

A Financial Power of Attorney grants permission to a named person to manage your financial affairs should you become incapacitated. The person to whom you grant your power of attorney should be someone that you trust and who has an acceptable level of financial acumen.

A Health Care Power of Attorney is someone you name to act on your behalf, in the event that you become incapacitated, to manage your medical care, talk with your doctors and other care givers, and make decisions about specific doctors to treat you as well as procedures and medications that could be administered to you. You may also see this person referred to as a health care surrogate or health care proxy.

3. What will happen to your digital estate?

If your initial reaction is “what is a digital estate?” or “I do not have a digital estate,” you are not alone. Over the past two decades, technology has stealthily crept into many aspects of our lives. Just by participating in today’s “normal” activities, you are creating a digital estate—and your digital footprint is likely growing each year.

It is wise to develop a list of the following digital assets, along with their passwords:

• Email and social media accounts
• Third-party password manager accounts
• Online banking, mortgages, credit cards, and brokerage accounts
• Insurance accounts
• Utility accounts and streaming services
• Contact lists and anything else you keep in the “cloud”

After you have listed your digital assets and determined what will become of them, you need to entrust someone to implement your plan after you are gone. While the role of a digital executor is not a legally binding or enforceable role in most states, it is still an important person in the administration of your estate.

4. What legacy will you leave to your favorite charities?

The simplest way to support charitable organizations like ours is to designate a gift in your will or trust or by naming us as a beneficiary of your IRA or life insurance policy. These gifts can support a specific campaign or program or provide capital funding for our future needs.

You can also establish a gift that will provide you and/or your spouse with lifetime income with the principal transferred to us after your death.

There are also many ways to use your IRA to support our mission.

We would be happy to assist you in exploring these options in a no-obligation discussion. Just contact our office to receive assistance from one of our gift planning experts.