October 1st, 2026 |

• Estate Planning

By Attorney Al Spiegel

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Estate planning is an area that makes most people uncomfortable.  For nonbelievers, it forces them to confront their own mortality and finiteness, a place they would strongly prefer not to linger.  For believers, it forces us to discuss distributing our assets to the stewardship of others, a discussion we are equally eager to avoid.

As a result of this universal discomfort, many people trust in minimally thought-out estate plans to handle the extremely important business of transferring control and ownership of their assets in the event of their incapacity or death.  The most common of these under-thought estate plans is the simple will.  For the following five reasons, a simple will is not a comprehensive estate plan and should be reviewed (and probably replaced) immediately.

1. Wills Don’t Include Powers of Attorney

Many clients visit my office and tell me they already have all the documents they need for an estate plan.  When I ask to review the documents, they tell me everything is “in the will.”  They assume that the will not only handles the after-death distribution of assets but also names a medical and financial agent (power of attorney) to manage a person’s affairs while they are alive but incompetent.  That assumption is wrong.  A will only determines how a court will distribute assets after a person’s death.  It does not name a medical or financial agent for lifetime decisions, because it does not take effect until death.

2. Wills Require Probate

As stated above, a will only determines how a court will distribute assets after a person’s death.  The sentence is worth repeating.  A will does not allow for quick, private, and cost-efficient distribution of assets.  It simply informs a probate judge how you desire the government to oversee the distribution of your estate. The process will require public notices, public hearings, and public filings of financial documents.  In most counties, it will take no less than one year.

Some clients will object and tell me that a deceased relative died and only had a will, but that relative’s estate was done just by taking a death certificate to the bank.  If that was the case, the reason the probate court was not involved was that the bank already had payable-on-death beneficiaries on file, so the will was never actually used.  If the will is used, it will be inefficient.  So, avoid relying on an inefficient, public, government process to distribute your estate to people or organizations you are seeking to bless.  Skip the will and make a better plan.

3. Wills Don’t Control Payable-On-Death Assets

As stated above, wills do not supersede payable-on-death designations on bank accounts, life insurance, and other assets.  In other words, if you set up your sister as the beneficiary of your bank account in 1991 and later made a will saying that your church should receive that account, your church will never see a dime of the account.  The will only handles assets that remain in your name after your death, and, based on what you told the bank in 1991 and never removed, that asset will automatically transfer to your sister upon your death.

4. Wills Offer Opportunities For Troublemakers

In addition to being public, expensive, and slow, the probate process also requires that legal heirs (disinherited children, estranged siblings, etc.) receive notice of the process and an opportunity to object to the will.  This means that if you intentionally do not include a child in your will, that child will receive a copy of the will after your death and a letter that gives them an opportunity to object to its contents and execution.  If your intention is to exclude someone from your estate, giving them an opportunity to harass and stress out the people you wanted to include seems like a poor way to do it.

5. Wills Don’t Protect Info in the Future

Since wills must be overseen by the government until they are completely administered, they very rarely include any protection for minor, immature, or troubled beneficiaries.  If a will did include protection for a beneficiary for twenty years, for example, that will would be subject to government oversight for that entire time. That reality makes people far less likely to protect their beneficiaries in a will, and even when they have done so, it makes the appointed supervisors less likely to hold back funds from those beneficiaries, considering the headaches that come with that supervision.

For the reasons listed above and more, it is wise to meet with a qualified estate planning attorney to discuss how to set up an estate plan that will equip the people you wish to put in charge of your affairs when you can’t be and bless the people and organizations you wish to transfer your assets to when you are gone.  Stewardship is important, so preparing for it wisely is imperative.