Page 88 - Smart Money

Chapter 4

that you speak to an estate planning professional. They can point out
things that you might not ordinarily think about off the top of your head,
as in scenarios where you want specific assets to go to certain people, or
about what might happen from a custodial point of view.
It is not as expensive as people think. You can get a pair of wills drawn
up for a husband and wife for well under $1,000 and, as we said, it’s
something that, once you’ve got, hopefully gives you peace of mind. You
do need to review them every few years to make sure that they are still
current and still reflect your wishes, but generally they are easy to review.

Estate planning encompasses the will, but also a lot more. It includes
things like power of attorney. There is the standard power of attorney,
which essentially gives someone the capacity to act on your behalf, and
there is also an enduring power of attorney, which covers the situation
where you lose mental capacity. A standard power of attorney generally
expires or is not valid from that point, whereas an enduring power of
attorney can continue even if the individual’s mental capacity is lost.

Estate planning also covers death benefit nominations within
superannuation, which is very important. We just talked about
superannuation being a life insurance policy, but it has its own set of
estate rules or eligibilities. There are other considerations, including
custody of children in the event of death, and the timings of bequests
of certain estate assets for children, who may be too young to have the
financial literacy to handle it themselves.

Key Point

Wills and estate planning are daunting, adult topics, but if you have

beneficiaries that stand to be at risk in the event of your death, handle
it once and get it done correctly, even if it costs some money. You can
then continue on, knowing that you have the peace of mind that it is
under control. The risk is that if you don’t address it and something goes
wrong, it is your beneficiaries and family members that suff er.