Almost everyone we meet knows they should have a will. Many of them do. Almost no one is confident the rest of their estate plan is current — because most people don't realize the will is just one document of many.
The three documents below are where families get hurt most often when they're missing, outdated, or contradicted by beneficiary forms elsewhere.
1. A revocable living trust
A revocable trust holds your assets during your lifetime and continues to hold them after your death without entering probate. Probate is the court process that supervises the distribution of a will's assets — and it is slow, public, and expensive, particularly in states (like Illinois) where it has not been streamlined.
Key things a trust does that a will alone does not:
- Avoids probate for any asset titled in the trust's name.
- Keeps the distribution private. Wills become public record once filed with the court; trust documents do not.
- Handles incapacity. A successor trustee can step in immediately if you become incapable of managing your affairs — without a court guardianship.
- Coordinates real estate across states. A second home in Florida or Arizona owned outside a trust may require a separate probate proceeding in that state.
A trust only works for assets that are actually titled in the trust. Many families create a beautiful trust and then never re-title the house, the brokerage account, or the LLC. Funding the trust is half the job — the half that almost always gets skipped.
2. A durable financial power of attorney
This is the document that says, if you become incapacitated, who is allowed to sign checks, pay your bills, file your taxes, manage your investments, and talk to Medicare for you.
Without it, your family may need to petition the court for a financial guardianship — a process that can take months, costs thousands of dollars, and is decided by a judge who has never met you. The form itself is short. The conversation about who to name is the hard part.
3. A healthcare power of attorney + living will
Two related but distinct documents:
- Healthcare power of attorney — names someone empowered to make medical decisions if you can't. They can talk to your doctors, consent to procedures, and access your medical records under HIPAA.
- Living will — captures your wishes about end-of-life care: when (and whether) to discontinue artificial life support, feeding tubes, resuscitation.
These don't make headlines but they prevent the worst version of every family crisis — one where adult children argue over what their parent would have wanted, in a hospital hallway, with no document to point to.
Beneficiary forms beat the will
One more piece almost everyone misses: the beneficiary designations on your IRAs, 401(k)s, life insurance, and TOD-titled brokerage accounts pass outside your will entirely. If your will leaves "everything to my children equally" but your IRA still has your sister listed from 1998 as the beneficiary, the IRA goes to your sister.
We review every client's beneficiary forms annually. It's the highest-leverage 15 minutes in financial planning. Most families' beneficiary forms are not where they think they are.
