FAMILY PLANNING BLOG

You bought the policy because someone depends on you. That was an act of care, even if it felt like one more form to finish between work, dinner, and everything else.  Now you have a trust, and a question: should your life insurance beneficiary still be your spouse?

An inheritance trust for adult children is not about controlling the money or questioning your child’s judgment. It places protection around family wealth before that wealth enters the legal and financial risks that accompany the life your child has built.

In 2026, estates and trusts enter the 37% federal marginal income tax bracket once taxable income exceeds $16,000. A single individual does not enter that bracket until taxable income exceeds $640,600.  Those numbers get attention. They do not answer the most important question: What do you want this wealth to make possible for the people you love?

Make-A-Will Month is a good reminder to think about this. But for business owners, a will barely scratches the surface. I work with business owners on exactly these questions, and the gaps I find are almost always the same.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, best known as Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, died in 2025. One year later, his widow alleges $1.2 million in unfulfilled premarital obligations: a life insurance policy never purchased, a Roth IRA never funded, and anniversary payments never made. A nine-year-old daughter is at the center of the dispute. Here’s what more thorough follow-through on the planning could have helped prevent.

August is Make-A-Will Month, and the urgency is real. Trust & Will's 2026 Estate Planning Report, a nationally representative survey of 5,000 U.S. adults fielded in early 2026, found that only 26% of adults currently have a will, down from 31% the year before, and 56% have no estate planning documents at all. The nudge matters. But a will and a real plan are not the same thing, and most families don't find that out until the moment it is too late to fix it.  Here is what your family actually needs.

For most of us, our friends are among the most important people in our lives. For some, they're chosen family: the people who show up, who know everything, who would be on the other end of that phone call if something went wrong. And yet we rarely think about what it means to love someone that much and say nothing while they go unprotected.

You've raised it before. Your spouse keeps saying "not now." But every week that passes without a plan is a week your family's future depends on chance instead of intention. Here's what to do when you're not on the same page, and what you can start doing today.

Debt does not transfer to your heirs the way your assets do. What it does is make a claim against your estate before your heirs receive anything. Understanding the difference is what determines whether your family pays what they owe, or pays what they never had to.