Life Insurance and ILITs

What if we told you that there is a financial product available that does the following:

• Transfers wealth tax-free to your spouse and/or your heirs (that includes Pennsylvania inheritance tax, federal estate tax, federal income tax and state income tax).
• Ensures that any income loss as a result of your death does not affect your spouse or family negatively.
• Provide safety of investment from market risk or market loss.
• Provide you with long term care coverage if you need it.

Certain life insurance policies can achieve all of those goals! Yes, not everyone can get covered or is eligible, but you'd be surprised how insurance companies are rapidly changing and covering more individuals under these types of policies.

One of the greatest benefits of these policies is providing you with long term care coverage if you ever require it. Your death benefit would be used towards your long term care costs. That means no traditional long term care policy is needed, and your estate won't be diminished if you need care, leaving nothing for your family.

Interested in learning more about this type of life insurance? Call us today at (215) 706-0200 to schedule your complimentary consultation. 

Long Term Care Insurance: A small minority of individuals own a long term care insurance policy. They're expensive and many providers are dropping coverage. But if you can get underwritten at a good rate, a small policy may make sense to cover some of the costs. However, even small policies can be expensive.

Hybrid Life Insurance Policy: New whole life insurance products are available to convert a death benefit into available funds for long term care costs. In addition, whole life insurance has a host of other benefits, including being tax free, estate/inheritance tax free, and can be used as a wealth transfer and accumulation tool depending on the policy.

Asset Preservation Planning with Trusts: An elder law attorney can help shelter a portion of your wealth so that it doesn't have to be "spent down" on long term care before you can qualify for Medicaid. However, this type of planning must be done while you're still healthy.

Do Nothing: Many people take a chance and hope they don't have long term care needs. Even if you end up needing long term care, an elder law attorney can help preserve assets at that moment of crisis.

Looking for a great resource on estate and retirement planning? Jeremy Wechsler, your Estate & Elder Law Attorney, recently co-authored a new book with Peter R. Wechsler, his father and Your Retirement Quarterback. The book is an easy read but full of valuable information on estate and retirement planning.

Learn more about the book here: https://solvingtheretirementpuzzle.com

When is the right time to start planning your estate? It really depends on your concern, but we help a range of people plan, from those in their 20's through the 90's.

It is especially important to plan if you have young children, or are newly married. You need to ensure a guardian is appointed for your children in case something happens to you and/or your spouse. Also, you want to ensure you have adequate life insurance for your children, and a trust set up in case something happens to you while they are still underage.

If you have grandchildren, you should encourage your children to engage in estate planning if they haven’t already.

Everyone, whether you’re 20 years old or 90 years old, needs a basic estate plan, which includes a will, financial power of attorney, and health care power of attorney (with a living will).

As you build up your 401(k) or IRA, you should see an estate planning attorney to ensure that your beneficiary designation forms are properly completed, and that these accounts are coordinated with your overall estate plan.

When you get into your 60’s, you should consider seeking the advice of an elder law attorney. Medicaid laws make it very difficult to shelter assets in case a spouse goes into a nursing home today. The earlier you plan, the better.

Everyone should update their estate plan every few years, to ensure the documents are still an accurate reflection of your wishes.

As you grow older, your needs will change. You may need more advanced estate planning. Some reasons for needing more advanced planning include:

• Family member with special needs
• Family member with health issues
• Estate value grows
• Property in multiple states
• Family conflicts
• New family members
• Charitable intentions
• Asset protection issues

If we can assist you with any estate planning matters, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office for a complementary consultation by calling (215) 706-0200.

An estate plan completed by a law firm, by itself, is simply the legal documents that are drawn up to make sure your wishes are valid when you become incapacitated and when you die. 

However, an effective estate plan should be part of your overall retirement plan and wealth management plan. 

When our clients want to make sure their estate plan is seamless with their retirement plan, income plan and tax plan, we work with Franklin Retirement Solutions, a firm that specializes in retirement planning. Together, we can make sure all of the pieces of your plan fit together.

Here's just one of many examples of how a "piece meal" plan can go wrong: Client X has a financial advisor, who doesn't know the estate planning attorney. Client X has a special needs child. Client X asks attorney to protect assets for the special needs child, and attorney drafts both a will and sets up a special needs trust. Client X dies, and estate realizes that assets were not allocated properly (as a special needs child, putting assets directly into this child's name is a really bad idea). Client X's financial advisor was not aware of rules for special needs persons that are on public benefits. As a result, Client X's son almost lost his public benefits. 

By combining your financial planning and estate planning, your plan becomes a lot more effective. Most of our clients love having access to a financial planner, tax planner, Medicare supplement/Long-term care insurance specialist, and more.

To summarize, here are a few advantages of planning with this approach:

• All parts of your plan work together
• Ensures your plan will be reviewed and, if needed, updated more often
• Provides a more seamless transition to your heirs, since your affairs are in order.

We find that this type of planning is extremely beneficial to middle class clients. To learn more about our comprehensive approach to estate and retirement planning, please give our office a call today at (215) 706-0200.

2010 has been quite a year already... The U.S. Congress has failed miserably at giving us direction on what the tax landscape will look like come 2011. Folks, we're only five months away from 2011, believe it or not. And in 2011, the federal estate tax comes back with a roar. If Congress does nothing, many more people will potentially be effected by the tax. For married couples, you will be able to pass on about $2 Million to your heirs, estate tax free. If your estate is worth more than $2 Million, every dollar past the $2 Million mark will be taxed at a 55% rate. $2.5 million estate? Count on your heirs paying Uncle Sam $275,000.

Congress has not stepped up to the plate at this point, and there have been no meaningful committee votes or full member votes on any estate tax fix. A couple of senators and house members have spoken up, but that's not enough when you have 535 such members. Therefore, I am not optimstic right now that there will be a fix come 2011. If you think your estate is worth around $1 million or more if you're single, or $2 million or more if you're married, you need to start thinking about planning now. There are things we can do to minimize the estate tax if you were effected by it.

Here are a couple of great articles I've found this morning on the federal estate tax.

• What's next for the federal estate tax? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. This article is great for Pennsylvanian's to read.

• Ways to shelter your money should the estate tax return. NJ Star Ledger. Provides a couple of ideas for reducing the estate tax if you're effected.

The best time to plan is now. Please do not hesitate to reach out to my firm to get started on planning. Call us at (215) 706-0200.

Your will does many things, but any asset that has a beneficiary designation form, such as a life insurance policy, annuity, IRA, etc., does not pass through your will.

Instead, those assets with a beneficiary form pass directly to the specified benefiary, and the will does not control in those situations.

What are the implications of this for your estate plan? All too often, families have not given serious thought to fairness and equality in distributing assets and personal property. For example, in your will, you leave 50% to Child A and 50% to Child B. But you have a large life insurance policy that you purchased before Child B was born, and Child A is the sole beneficiary. As a result, the distribution of your estate is unequal.

The example above is a simple one, but many plans have more assets, family members and gray areas. You should speak with a qualified estate planning attorney who can analyze your entire estate, including the assets that pass outside of your will, and implement a superior solution that will benefit your family.

As always, we recommend that you review and possibly update your estate plan in Pennsylvania no less than every five years. Your will, trust, powers of attorney and beneficiary forms may need changes, and it's a good idea to meet with your attorney to review your documents. If you have not reviewed your estate plan for over five years, please call our office at 215-706-0200 to schedule a complementary consultation.

Have you considered an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT)?

There is a common misconception that life insurance proceeds are not subject to estate tax.  While the proceeds are received by your loved ones free of any income taxes, they are countable as part of your taxable estate and therefore your loved ones can lose over forty percent of its value to federal estate taxes. As you probably know, there is no federal estate tax in 2010 as of now. However, don't count on that being the norm -- In this economy, you can be sure the federal estate tax will be back in 2011 to raise revenue for the federal government. 

An Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust keeps the death benefits of your life insurance policy outside your estate so that they are not subject to estate taxes.  There are many options available when setting up an ILIT.  For example, ILIT's can be structured to provide income to a surviving spouse with the remainder going to your children from a previous marriage.  You can also provide for distribution of a limited amount of the insurance proceeds over a period of time to a financially irresponsible child. In general, life insurance is a valuable estate planning tool for many families, as it provides a source of liquid cash to handle estate administration upon the passing of your loved one.

If you are interested in discussing ILIT's as part of your estate plan, please contact us.