While various types of insurance can protect your business from lawsuits and other liabilities, perhaps the greatest liability of all—especially if you’re the sole owner of your business—is what could happen to your company when you die or if you should become incapacitated by accident or illness.  To ensure your business—and the income it provides your family—is protected if you’re no longer in the picture, you’ll Read More

Investing in life insurance is a foundational part of estate planning. However, when naming your policy’s beneficiaries, there are a number of mistakes you can make that could lead to potentially dire consequences for the very people you’re trying to protect and support. The following four mistakes are among the most common we see clients make when selecting life insurance beneficiaries. If you’ve made any of these Read More

Divorce can be traumatic for the whole family. Even if the process is amicable, it involves many tough decisions, legal hassles, and painful emotions that can drag out over several months, or even years. That said, while you probably don’t want to add any more items to your to-do list during these trying times, it’s absolutely critical that you review and update your estate plan—not only after the divorce is final, Read More

With more and more Baby Boomers reaching retirement age each year, our country is undergoing an unprecedented demographic transformation that’s been dubbed “The Greying of America”. This population shift stands to affect many aspects of life, especially your relationships with aging parents and other senior family members. By 2060, the number of Americans aged 65 and older is projected to nearly double from 52 Read More

Given how far web-based technology has evolved, you might think online legal document services like LegalZoom and WillsandTrusts.com have advanced to the point where they’re a suitable alternative to having your estate plan prepared by a lawyer. After all, you’ve been able to prepare and file your taxes online for years, so what makes estate planning so much different? Aren’t lawyers using the very same forms you Read More

Do your parents have an estate plan? Is it up to date? No matter how rich or poor you or your parents are, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, you need to be asking these and several other questions. When your parents become incapacitated or die, their affairs will become your responsibility, and it will be impossible to ask them to clarify anything. So, if you do not know whether or not they have estate Read More

These unprecedented times are scary for us all. Though the numbers are still out, it seems that while coronavirus is mainly life-threatening only for the elderly and immunocompromised, it can also in some cases claim the lives of the young and the healthy. For many, this is a wakeup call. Between accidents and undetected medical issues, the young and seemingly healthy have never been death-proof, but the highly Read More

On January 1, 2020, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE Act) went into effect, and it could have big implications for both your retirement and estate planning strategies—and not all of them are positive.  Last week, we discussed three of the SECURE Act’s most impactful provisions. Specifically, we looked at the SECURE Act’s new requirements for the distribution of assets from Read More

Though most entrepreneurs understand the value of effective business planning, fewer are aware of the critical role estate planning plays in their company’s success. Yet considering what would happen to your business upon your death or in the event of your incapacity is one of the single-most important things you can do for your business. Indeed, without a proper estate plan, the business you worked so hard to Read More