Important Steps to follow when creating an Estate Plan

Having an estate plan—designating what should happen to you and your assets if you should die or become incapacitated—is extremely important in order to meet your financial goals and provide for your loved ones.
I recommend consulting with a financial advisor or an estate planning attorney for assistance in designing a plan that works for your specific circumstances. After all, we are all different and have different needs, wishes and desires.
Here are some of the key steps involved:

1. Take Inventory of What You Own, What You Owe and to whom.
Compile a comprehensive list of your assets and debts, including account numbers and contact information for financial institutions and advisors. Keep this list in a safe place. Include original copies of important documents and don't forget to give a copy to the executor of your will.

2. Make a Contingency Plan. Remember Murphy's law. Any thing that can go wrong, will. 
Plan ahead and make provisions to protect your future and your retirement income. Don't forget to include documents that allow your family to handle your affairs if you became incapacitated.
This includes having disability insurance and a strategy to cover potential care-giving expenses.

3. Make arrangements for Children and Dependents. Find a suitable guardian for children under age 18 and provide for dependents who might not be specifically addressed if you plan to leave assets to a current spouse. This might include any children you have from a previous marriage or someone with special needs.

4. Protect Your Assets. Maintain your assets for heirs and your legacy by minimizing expenses, cover estate taxes and outline strategies for transferring or disposing of family owned business, real estate or investment property. Many people use find that using permanent life insurance allows you to leverage your money. Some create different types of trusts for this purpose trusts to handle this.

5. Document Your Wishes in writing. Make certain your wishes can be carried out by creating the necessary legal documents, including an updating your will to dispose of your assets, make sure you have a living will specifying your end-of-life wishes, and powers of attorney for health care and financial matters. Very important step is to confirm beneficiaries for your life insurance policies, retirement accounts and other assets, and ownership of personal possessions such as automobiles and property by making sure they are  properly titled. Having your estate as your beneficiary will cause delays and probate costs while having a named beneficiary may avoid hassles.

6. Appoint Fiduciaries. You need to designate someone to act on your behalf as executor of your will, a trustee for your assets, a legal guardian for your dependents and/or power of attorney if you became incapacitated. If not, the courts will have to make that decision for you and it may not be according to your wishes. Do not assume, check with your fiduciaries to make sure they agree to be appointed and remember where you can find your original estate planning documents.
All that preparation is useless if no one knows where those documents are.

Whether you are very young and just starting out or you have accumulated great wealth over a lifetime, an up-to-date estate plan can help you minimize the impact of unexpected events on yourself and on your family by preserving, protecting and helping to  manage your estate.
A good financial advisor and an estate planning attorney can provide the required expertise to help you in creating a plan that meets your financial and estate planning goals that can impact you well into the future.

Additional things to consider: Is a trust right for you?
Call an advisor or consult with an estate planning attorney.