Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Estate Planning for Young Families

It is never too soon to write a will, and have powers of attorney drafted, particularly if you are married and have children. Young families in Pennsylvania need to have a fundamental estate plan in place. Once the fundamentals are in place, as your family grows, you can build on your estate plan as needed.

The fundamentals of a young family's estate plan includes:

• A Last Will & Testament: If you and your spouse go at the same time, you need to ensure that your assets are protected for your children. You also need to make sure a guardian is appointed, so that no guardianship proceedings are necessary.
• Financial Powers of Attorney: This ensures that if you become disabled or incapacitated, someone else can make decisions for you. If both you and your spouse both are disabled at the same time, this document also ensures that you have put a temporary guardian in place for your children.
• Medical Powers of Attorney: Your health care decisions and end of life preferences are extremely important, and you must appoint someone to have authority over such decisions if something were to happen to you.
• Adequate Life Insurance: For young children, parents need to ensure that there is at least a term life insurance policy to provide the resouces to care for a child, pay for college, etc. if the spouse who generates the income dies.
• 529 Plan/College Savings Plan: A college savings plan should be in place for your child or children.

These are the basics of any estate plan for a young family. As your family matures, or if there are unique circumstances in your family, different estate planning tools may be needed. Our firm is equipped to assist young families with all of their estate planning needs in the Philadelphia area. For a complementary consultation, please call us today at (215) 706-0200 or email info@jawatlaw.com.