Estate planning is not only for married individuals. Most couples assume that if anything happens to them, their spouse will handle it – but what about those that are single? Singles need to consider what will happen to their assets if something happens to them.
Here are some of the steps you should take when it comes to your estate plan, as recommended by our estate planning storage experts:
- Obtain a power of attorney and a health care proxy.
These documents are meant to help you if you become incapacitated. You need to appoint someone who can act on your behalf and make important financial, as well as medical decisions for you. Without a power of attorney and a health care proxy, your family has limited rights to make decisions for you. In most instances, your family or health care provider will have to ask the court to appoint a guardian on your behalf if these documents are not in place.
- Choosing your beneficiaries.
You may need a will. If you don’t have one, then the court will depend on state law to decide on the order of inheritance. Besides a will, you also want to ensure that the right beneficiaries are stated on your bank accounts, investment accounts, life insurance policies, and retirement accounts to ensure your assets are distributed the way that you intended.
- Update your estate planning documents as necessary.
By doing this, you can have the reassurance that everything you have worked for is given to those who are most important to you.
Now, one of the best ways to manage your assets and documents is through a secure digital storage vault. With this, you can organize and securely store personal asset and final wishes information, along with critical documents to include your last will & testament, power of attorney, and insurance policies without having to worry about this information being lost. A digital storage vault will make certain that your family can easily access the necessary information to finalize your affairs.
You can count on Life Snapshot®, Inc. to help secure your assets – web-application in Chicago, Illinois. Kindly get in touch with us for more about our secure storage vault services.