In honor of Valentine’s day, let’s talk about leaving a plan for those people that you love!  Just like you may have set plans to celebrate this week, let’s discuss the plans you should make in case something happens to you.

Here are two different scenarios that can happen when something happens to you.

In the first instance, if you don’t have a plan people just wait to find things out.  They have to find all of your documents.  They have to learn if you had any estate planning documents.  They will have to find any accounts you had or expenses that needed paid.  So they’re left waiting for the mail to come in to find out what needs to be taken care of.  It’s a waiting game…likely hoping your expenses were less than any assets you owned.

Instead of leaving a mess, please consider leaving a plan!  Just like you planned out the details for your valentine’s dinner (the time, place, and directions to arrive) you can plan out what should happen in the event of a health emergency.  The time to plan can even take a similar amount of time. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time, it can be very simple!  It’s really about making decisions and talking about what you want.

So, when you’re leaving a plan you will lay out the following details:

• IF something happens ⇒
• THEN what do I want to happen? ⇒
• WHO is that going to affect? ⇒
• HOW much will someone inherit? ⇒
• WHEN do these things need to happen?

You can see from these two examples that leaving a mess vs. leaving a plan is really different.  We really care about the people we love so let’s aim for leaving a plan.  Hopefully this helps you to see how simple this can be and the differences of both options in a week where we really want to show the people we love how much we care!