You already took the time to create an intentional blueprint for managing your financial, personal and medical affairs through your estate plan. Done and done. Or is it? Even a thoughtfully designed plan can suddenly become outdated as your life and financial circumstances shift.
National Estate Planning Awareness Week, recognized during the third full week of October, provides a timely reminder to revisit the plans you already have in place and ask an important question: Does my estate plan still reflect my life, wealth and long-term goals today?
For individuals and families with significant or increasingly complex wealth, a lot can change in just a few years. Your family may grow. Your portfolio may look substantially different. You may acquire property, receive an inheritance, buy or sell a business, relocate to another state or develop new philanthropic priorities.
Each of these changes can have implications for how your wealth is managed and ultimately transferred to future generations. An estate plan should be part of a broader wealth strategy that may need to evolve alongside your family, finances and vision for the future.
Here are six changes that may signal it is time to revisit yours.
1. Your Family Has Changed
Marriage, divorce, births, deaths and changing family relationships can all be reasons to review an existing estate plan.
Perhaps the children you once planned for as minors are now adults with families and financial circumstances of their own. Grandchildren may have entered the picture. A beneficiary may have passed away, or someone you previously selected to serve as a trustee, executor or decision maker may no longer be the right fit.
These changes can affect more than your will. Beneficiary designations, trusts, powers of attorney and healthcare directives may also warrant attention.
The question goes beyond whether your documents remain legally valid. It is whether the people, provisions and responsibilities outlined in them still reflect your intentions today.
Do you have a child heading off to college? Once a child is legally an adult, parents generally no longer have automatic authority to make financial or healthcare decisions on their behalf. While a comprehensive estate plan may not be necessary at this stage, having an adult child establish financial and healthcare powers of attorney can help simplify matters if an unexpected situation arises while they are away from home.
2. Your Wealth Has Grown or Changed
Significant changes in your net worth or the composition of your assets can be an important reason to revisit your estate plan.
An estate plan developed earlier in your career may not fully address the financial picture you have today. Portfolio growth, inheritance, real estate acquisitions, concentrated stock positions, private investments, and other changes in wealth can introduce new considerations around how assets are owned, managed, and ultimately transferred.
The composition of your wealth matters as well. An estate consisting primarily of marketable securities can present different planning considerations than one that includes multiple properties, private investments, closely held businesses or other less liquid assets.
As your balance sheet evolves, consider whether your estate and wealth transfer strategies have kept pace.
3. You Have Bought, Grown or Sold a Business
For business owners, major changes in ownership or value can have significant implications for estate and succession planning.
A closely held business may represent a substantial portion of an owner’s wealth, making questions around ownership, management, valuation, liquidity and succession particularly important.
Who would take control if you were unable to run the business? Is the next generation expected to participate? If some heirs are involved in the business and others are not, does your estate plan account for those differences?
Selling a business can be equally significant. Converting a closely held asset into liquid wealth can substantially change your balance sheet and introduce new and complex investment, tax, charitable and wealth transfer considerations.
Whether you are building toward a transition or have recently completed one, a major business milestone can be an important reason to revisit your estate strategy.
4. Your Beneficiaries’ Circumstances Have Changed
Changes in the lives of the people who may eventually receive your wealth can matter just as much as changes in your own.
Children may marry or divorce, introducing a new dynamic to your relationship. Grandchildren may be born. A beneficiary’s financial circumstances may change. Some heirs may be prepared to manage inherited wealth independently, while others may benefit from additional structure.
This is also an opportunity to review beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and certain financial accounts. Because these designations can determine how significant assets are transferred, outdated instructions can result in outcomes that no longer align with your broader estate plan.
A beneficiary review can help ensure your designations continue to reflect your intentions and wealth transfer strategy.
5. Your Tax or Charitable Priorities Have Evolved
For individuals and families with substantial assets, federal and state tax considerations may intersect with decisions about gifting, trusts, charitable giving, and multigenerational wealth transfer. Changes in tax laws, residency, wealth, and philanthropic priorities can create additional reasons to revisit an existing estate strategy.
Your charitable priorities may evolve as well. What begins as annual giving may develop into a more intentional philanthropic strategy involving family members, legacy objectives or long-term support for particular organizations and causes.
If your tax circumstances, charitable interests, or legacy goals look substantially different today, your estate plan should be evaluated through that same lens.
6. Your Vision for Your Legacy Has Changed
Estate planning conversations can move beyond simply determining who receives particular assets. You may begin thinking about providing opportunities for future generations, preserving family property, transitioning a business, supporting charitable causes, or establishing a framework for multigenerational wealth.
Your priorities at one stage of life may look very different a decade or two later.
An estate plan should be flexible enough to evolve with those priorities and continue reflecting not only who you want to benefit, but how and why you want your wealth to make an impact.
How Often Should You Review Your Estate Plan?
How old is your estate plan? Even if your circumstances have remained relatively consistent, the age of your estate planning documents may be worth considering. Powers of attorney, in particular, can sometimes face greater scrutiny from financial institutions or other third parties as they age. Documents executed within the past 10 years may be less likely to encounter resistance, although acceptance ultimately depends on applicable laws and institutional requirements.
Estate plan reviews are less about a set schedule and more about keeping your financial professionals informed as your life evolves. Significant changes to your family, finances, business interests, residence, tax circumstances, or long-term objectives should generally prompt another look.
Even without a major life event, periodic reviews can help identify whether your estate planning documents, beneficiary designations, and broader financial strategy remain aligned with your intentions.
For families with complex financial circumstances, estate planning is a key component of a broader financial strategy. Your trusts, investments, insurance, business interests, charitable strategy, and tax planning can all intersect.
Coordination among your financial advisor, estate planning attorney, tax professional, and other specialists can help ensure those individual components continue to support the same broader objectives.
Has Your Estate Plan Kept Pace?
Does the strategy behind your existing estate plan still reflect your life today? Ask yourself three questions:
- Has my family changed?
- Has my wealth or financial life changed?
- Has my estate plan changed with them?
If your circumstances have evolved substantially since your estate plan was last reviewed, it may be time to revisit the conversation with your financial, legal, and tax professionals.
Ready to review how your estate plan fits within your broader wealth strategy? Connect with your Prime Capital Financial advisor to start the conversation.
Looking for a framework to guide your review? Download our Estate Planning Guide for practical prompts to discuss with your financial and legal professionals.
This information does not constitute legal advice. Prime Capital Financial and its associates do not provide legal advice. Individuals should consult with an attorney regarding the applicability of this information for their situations.
Advisory products and services offered by Investment Adviser Representatives through Prime Capital Investment Advisors, LLC (“PCIA”), a federally registered investment adviser. PCIA: 6201 College Blvd., Suite 150, Overland Park, KS 66211. PCIA doing business as Prime Financial | Wealth | Retirement | Wellness | Family Office | Tax Advisory | Endowments & Foundations. Tax planning and preparation services are offered through Prime Capital Financial Tax Advisory.
