Estate planning is one of the few things that you can do to legitimately plan ahead for the unexpected.
In most walks of life it is almost impossible to plan for the unexpected. Even when you can, it is often a waste of time. No offense to Doomsday preppers, for example, but it is almost impossible and most likely a waste of time to plan for the zombie apocalypse. The chances of such an event happening in our lifetime are exceedingly slim and we do not really know everything we would need to survive such a thing.
Even in business it is often difficult to plan for the unexpected. If a business person does not expect something to happen, it is a waste of resources to plan for it. It is usually better to spend those resources growing the business.
However, as WXOW points out in “Planning ahead for the unexpected with a will,” estate planning is different.
With estate planning we can plan for the unexpected and it will never be a complete waste of time. Most of us do not expect to die anytime soon, but we all know that we will die someday.
If you get an estate plan now, you have not wasted your time even if you do not pass away for decades. At some point the estate plan will be used.
By estate planning long before you expect to need it, you hedge your bets just in case something unexpected does happen tomorrow, but you also plan for the inevitable.
Getting an estate plan does not have to be a difficult process.
If you hire a qualified estate planning attorney, then the attorney will do most of the heavy lifting. You can get an estate plan that will be good should you need it next week or sometime later this century.
Reference: WXOW (Aug. 5, 2016) “Planning ahead for the unexpected with a will”
