The Mistake More Than Half Of Women Are Probably Making

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I am not a nervous flyer, but every time I travel by air, I think, “I really need to make a will. You know, just in case.” Then, usually by the time the fasten seatbelts sign lights up, I promptly forget about it until my next trip.

On domestic flights, at least, I am in good company: Fewer older Americans are making wills than have since the mid-2000s, according to a recent study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. In households led by adults over age 50, less than half reported having wills, and minority households are much less likely to have one compared to whites.

Procrastination is a major factor, says Gal Wettstein, a co-author of the study and the associate director of health and insurance at the Center for Retirement Research. But the most common reason for not having a will, reported by a full 44 percent of respondents, was that, like me, they just hadn't gotten around to it. Others were overwhelmed by the process, didn’t want to think about dying or didn’t think they needed a will. “Often, if they have already named beneficiaries for financial assets like their 401(k)s, most people think that is enough,” explains Wettstein.

I can relate to all these excuses. Making a will is all the fun of doing your taxes (a chore I happily pay to outsource) with the added bonus of pondering your imminent demise. I’m not being dramatic — “upon your demise” was a phrase that repeatedly cropped up when I spoke to an estate planner. And as someone who doesn’t come from generational wealth, the idea of bequeathing my meager belongings felt almost arrogant.

Still, there were two major aeronautical disasters and three deaths in my own social circles during the time I spent researching and writing this article, so I decided not to put it off any longer.

A Google search will lead you to dozens of websites offering to create a will for you. The thing to remember about these tools is that they may simply recreate the guidelines in your state with little concern for individual circumstances.

Or, as Wettstein says, “It’s easy to get a will. It’s hard to get a good will.”

An estate planner, on the other hand, can walk you through special circumstances, such as non-traditional family situations (stepkids, unmarried partners) and the handling of unusual assets (family businesses, art collections, my one-of-a-kind custom John Travolta mug) that most default state laws are not good at handling. They may also suggest you create an advance medical directive, aka a living will, as well as a healthcare and/or financial power of attorney, which appoints someone else to act on your behalf if you are incapacitated. This can help avoid mistakes and legal loopholes that may cause headaches for your heirs.

There are a few benefits to having a will, says Larry J. Macklin, CPA, J.D., AEP®, president of the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils (NAEPC).

You control where your property goes.

It's especially important if what you want clashes with default state statutes. For instance, if you want to leave a chunk of change to your live-in partner and not your estranged spouse.

You can choose your executor.

Rather than having the state appoint one.

You can name guardians.

To care for any dependents like minor children or disabled adults and set up trusts for the care of pets.

You might get a tax break.

That’s if you happen to be very wealthy (think multi-millionaire).

While Macklin recommends everyone have a will, he encourages people to arrange their affairs in such a way that they don’t need one. “Everything that transfers through a will has to go through a probate process,” he says. “That takes time, costs a little bit of money, and, depending on what state you are in, can be a little complex.”

Accounts with their own beneficiaries, like life insurance and 401(k)s, are much less likely to get tied up in post-mortem red tape. Macklin suggests using similar accounts, such as “pay on death” bank accounts and brokerage accounts or transferring your assets into a trust while you’re still alive as a way to circumvent the probate process.

This would have been useful in the case of a friend’s in-laws, who both died within 48 hours of each other. Usually, when one spouse dies, assets transfer to the remaining spouse, but with the unexpected turn of events, accounts were locked, and the family had to put the funeral arrangements on a credit card while they sorted it out.

“What we’ve found is the real cost of not having a will is when you have an asset that’s hard to divide and you rely on the default rules of the state you reside in,” says Wettstein. When it comes to property, for instance, the general default is to divide it among all the heirs, but that’s not easily done, and jointly owning a home can quickly become cumbersome: Which owner handles insurance claims, which pays utilities?

“It can become a bureaucratic mess that degrades the value of the house,” he says. A better way to approach it might be to leave one heir the property and the other a 401(k) account of equal value. These are the kinds of decisions an accredited estate planner can help you make (you can find one on the NAEPC website).

Macklin says that anyone above age 18 should have a will, but most people don’t even start thinking about it until they have their first child. It’s also important to update your will every five years or so, or if something significant happens in your life — like marriage, divorce, a significant change in wealth (like an inheritance), having a child, losing a parent or the death of whoever you named as executor.

Getting my will drawn up was pretty straightforward: one heir, one property and one John Travolta mug. But I definitely feel more secure now that it’s done. What’s more, it might actually help me reach my financial goals between now and my final rest. Research has shown that people with wills are more likely to have met expectations of how much money they will leave their heirs compared to those without wills. “So, a will is both a tool and motivation for good estate planning,” Wettstein says.

Now, I have a good five years before I have to ponder my demise again. Next step: Booking that flight to Hawaii.

 
How many of you have made out a will? Let us know in the comments below.