Where Care Meets Protection for Your Family and Legacy

You did it. You made a will. Maybe you've been meaning to get it done for years, or maybe something finally prompted you to take that important step. Either way, you now have something in place to tell your family and the court what you want to happen to your assets when you die. That's worth celebrating. But here's what I want you to know: making a will is the beginning of estate planning, not the end. A will doesn't address several important pieces, and overlooking them can leave your family with unnecessary court involvement, confusion, or financial headaches. If you already have a will, this is the checklist I recommend reviewing next. First, Understand What You Actually Signed A will is a legal document that tells a court what you want to happen to your assets after you die. That's the scope of it. It does not keep your family out of court. In most states, assets that pass through a will must go through probate, which is a public process that can take months, cost thousands in fees, and freeze your assets while it's happening. A will also only controls what's in it, not what you said. If you told someone you were leaving them your car and it isn't reflected in the document, that person may contest the will in court. Will contests are more common than most people realize, and even unsuccessful ones add cost, delay, and family conflict to an already difficult time. A will also does not control assets that have their own beneficiary designations: your retirement accounts, your life insurance, your bank accounts with transfer-on-death designations. Those pass outside your will entirely, by whatever name is on the form you filled out, sometimes years ago. And a will does nothing if you're incapacitated rather than dead. If you're in an accident and can't make decisions for yourself, your will doesn't activate. Your family may have no legal authority to manage your finances or make medical decisions without going to court first. The bottom line: A will is not a complete plan. Here's what building the rest of it actually looks like. Step 1: Your Beneficiary Designations May Already Be Overriding Your Will Most people don't realize this when they sign their will: an entirely separate set of documents already controls who gets a significant portion of their assets. Those documents are your beneficiary designation forms, and they operate completely outside of your will. Here is the part that matters. When your will conflicts with a beneficiary designation, the form wins. Every time. A judge does not have the authority to override it. Your will does not have the authority to override it. Whoever is named on that form gets the money. What I see most often: a former spouse still named on a retirement account. A parent who has since passed away. A child named directly as a beneficiary, which means that money is now subject to court-supervised guardianship until they turn 18, regardless of what your will says about how you wanted it managed. Every retirement account, life insurance policy, and bank account with a transfer-on-death designation needs to be reviewed. Each one needs a named primary beneficiary and a contingent beneficiary that reflects your family as it actually is today, not as it was the first week of your first job. Key takeaway: Your will does not control your beneficiary designations. Your beneficiary designations control themselves. Reviewing every form is one of the first things I walk through with every family in a Life & Legacy Planning® Session, because it is one of the most common places where an otherwise solid plan falls apart. Step 2: Find Out Whether Your Trust Is Actually Funded If you received a trust along with your will, ask one specific question: Are my assets actually in the trust? A trust only controls what is inside it. Signing a trust document creates a legal container. Transferring your assets into that container, which is called funding the trust, is a separate step that many families never complete. If your house, bank accounts, and investment accounts are still titled in your name rather than your trust's name, they will go through probate regardless of what the trust says. In my experience, unfunded trusts are one of the most common estate planning failures I encounter. Families pay for a trust, assume their estate is protected, and then their loved ones end up in probate court anyway because no one ever transferred the assets. The trust document is sitting in a folder. The assets never made it in. If you don't know whether your trust is funded, ask. If it isn't, funding it is the next priority. A trust you signed but never funded offers no more protection than no trust at all. Funding is not automatic. It has to be done deliberately, often with help.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s estate dispute highlights why estate planning requires more than documents. Learn how follow-through can protect your family.