Page 62 - 01A_CL7_OCT16.indd

Haven’t you paid
the government enough?
By the end of your career, certainly by the end of your life, you have paid enough taxes and contributed enough of your money to the government. Wouldn’t you agree?
every living trust estate plan for members.
Disability
If you do not have a properly drafted living trust and if one of your children, or any beneficiary you name, acquires a disability, whatever portion of your es- tate you leave that person will be taken by the government as reimbursement for any SSI and/or Medicaid benefits. You can prevent that from ever happening in your standard living trust. There is no way of knowing whether any of your children might ac- quire a disability, and the same goes for any grandchil- dren born with a disability – certainly a major concern with the rise of autism today. Don’t take that risk. Plan
now and protect your family.
Long-term Care
It has been estimated that as many as 70 percent of all people who live to age 65 will need long-term healthcare. We are living longer and, with it, comes necessary care. With our insurance coverage upside down and uncertain at best, we have to do something. Two major insurance carriers now offer critical care and critical-illness insur- ance for people who are diagnosed with cancer, stroke, heart attack and other serious illnesses. These plans offer daily or monthly benefits for in-patient rehab and con- tinuing care – for expenses Medicaid and standard insur- ance policies will not be covering. The policy benefit can provide someone in need of long-term care up to $2,000 per month for two years, and only costs around $110 per month.
Even better, a new hybrid policy is now available to FOP members, which combines life insurance and long-term care coverage. Up to 100 percent of all premiums paid for by long-term care coverage can be available as a tax-free death benefit for your family if you don’t use the benefits by the time of your death.
Registration for FOP members and family is free. Visit www.fopbenefitsplan.com or call 1-866-729-5454 for as- sistance with registering. d
Tom Tuohy is the founder of Tuohy Law Offices and the FOP Benefits Plan. He has been a police lawyer for 34 years. His father was a CPD detective and his grandfather was CPD Chief of Major Crimes. Tom can be reached at 312-559-8400.
In all my years of practicing law, I have never understood the willingness of so many people to let their estate become vulnerable when simple, inexpensive
planning is all that it takes to secure it completely for our family or intended recipients.
FOP
Benefits Plan
TOM TUOHY
None of us is getting out of this thing alive. There may not be a tomorrow to make those plans and get that se- curity. There are many options and simple choices to give you peace of mind. And no matter what we tell ourselves, getting our affairs in order is on our mind. We think about it for a minute, and then we put it aside. When we finally do the right thing, relief is what we feel – and rightly so.
How can lack of planning cost you? What can you do now?
Probate
You have heard about it. You may even have had the misfortune of being involved in it with a family member’s estate. It is simple. If you have assets in your name at your time of death that exceed $100,000, your estate will be probated. In Cook County, that means joining more than 110,000 open probate cases handled by nine judges. The process takes an average of 18 months; in the first six months, nothing can be done while a mandatory no- tice to creditors, known and unknown, is published in a newspaper. And during the delay, the real estate or stock markets may crash, as they have several times before. At the very least, your family has lost all control in a system controlled by the court, costing your family thousands of dollars and years of inconvenience.
The current probate system is designed to transfer as- sets in your name to whomever you name in a will or to whomever is entitled, by law, to inherit them. The rule of law is that no one can sign your name. So a probate judge approves an executor with that authority, who then must work through the probate system to make all distribu- tions. Think you can’t avoid it? You can – easily.
However, if you had created a living trust estate plan, all assets would have been previously transferred to this private family plan and your trustee would have the pow- er to make all distributions to your beneficiaries, without probate. Your living trust, as a member of the FOP Lodge 7 Benefits Plan, is offered at a fee that’s 50 percent low- er than the average legal fees today. Take advantage of it. And you will get me for that service; I personally handle
62 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ OCTOBER 2016