Estate Planning for Women

The start reality is that if you are a woman, you are statistically likely to outlive your male spouse if you are close to the same age. That means that you are more likely to be the one left to pass down the marital assets to children and other beneficiaries. Women also tend to be the caretakers of the family, making them more likely to be concerned with issues such as guardians for minor children and even plans for aging parents. Finally, more and more women are becoming entrepreneurs, adding in another important estate planning consideration into an already lengthy list of estate planning components. These considerations often make it even more important for a woman to have a comprehensive estate plan in place than her male counterpart.

The most well-known benefit of executing a Will is knowing that you will not die intestate. If you fail to execute at least a basic Will prior to your death, the state intestate succession laws will decide how your estate assets are distributed. Typically, this means that only a spouse and/or close relatives will inherit from your estate. Close friends, charities, and more distant relatives will receive nothing from your estate. In addition, executing a Will allows you the only official opportunity you will have to nominate a Guardian for your minor children in the event one is ever needed.

Ultimately, this is a decision you must make after consulting with your estate planning attorney; however, as a rule, it is usually better for spouses to create plans that work in harmony with one another but that remain separate. Because there is no way to know, with certainty, what the future will bring, you do not want to create an estate plan that is completely dependent on your spouse’s plan to function properly.

Incapacity planning should be part of your estate plan from the beginning because incapacity can strike at any time and to anybody. Without an incapacity plan in place, you have no way of knowing who will make health care decisions for you, who will take over control of your assets, or who will make personal decisions if you cannot make them yourself. By including incapacity planning in your estate plan you get to make those decisions yourself instead of a judge making them down the road.

Married couples often fail to realize the importance of how they hold title to assets. The way in which you title assets can determine whether the asset is required to go through the probate process or is automatically transferred to the surviving spouse upon the death of one spouse. Titling assets as joint owners with rights of survivorship means that the asset will bypass probate upon the death of one owner and that owner’s interest in the asset will transfer directly to the surviving owner (spouse).

The odds are good that you will outlive your spouse. This makes retirement planning even more important for you as a woman. You need to be certain that you will have sufficient assets and income to live comfortably if your spouse is the first to go. Because retirement planning and estate planning are so closely related, and a change in one plan almost always affects the other plan, it is always best to combine your retirement and estate planning into one cohesive plan.

Over half of all seniors in long-term care (LTC) rely on Medicaid to cover the high cost of that care. Again, because you are statistically more likely to outlive your spouse, you need to plan for the possibility that you will one day need LTC. Conversely, Medicaid planning is also important to ensure that your spouse does not deplete your entire nest egg with his LTC expenses, leaving you with nothing.

If you are an entrepreneur, you probably invested considerable time and resources into your business. To protect your financial (and emotional) investment in your business you should incorporate business succession planning into your comprehensive estate plan. This is the best way to make sure your business will be handled according to your wishes if you retire, become incapacitated, or pass away.