Women’s Guide to Estate Planning

Throughout our lifetime, many women are consumed with the tasks of raising a family, pursuing an education or a career, and helping a spouse build security and financial wealth for retirement. In the meantime, many women fail to establish an estate plan for themselves and their family.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, widows over the age of 65 typically outnumber widowers by five to one. In fact, the Older Women’s League completed a study that reported that the average age a women becomes a widow is at age 56. A Michigan study completed in 1998 reported that of the seniors age 65 and older, 61% were female. For seniors age 85 and older, nearly 75% were female. This pattern reflects national trends in the senior population as well.

Since women statistically live longer and tend to fill the role of care giver, there is a good chance they will have to deal with a husband or family member’s disability or death. For this reason a Designation of Patient of Advocate and Living Will (Health Care Power of Attorney) is an important document. It appoints a care giver to make medical decisions if you are mentally unable to do so yourself and it provides the care giver with specific instructions regarding your medical care. In fact, the Patient Advocate and Living Will gives the care giver the legal clout to act, even to the point of removing an individual from life support.

Preparing for a medical emergency is only the beginning. Without a Durable Power of Attorney, you may also find that you do not have authority over a spouse’s legal affairs.

Without the right legal documents in place, you will be forced to go through “Living Probate”. Living Probate is the process of appointing a guardian and conservator for an incapacitated individual. The purpose of this proceeding is to determine whether your spouse is competent to handle his financial affairs. Even if you do get appointed to act as guardian and conservator, this authority ends at death and now you must look for a Will.

If a spouse has died without a Will, they have died intestate. The division of the spouse’s assets is left to the discretion of the probate court and the court is required to follow the laws of the state where the decedent resides at the time of death. When it is all said and done the surviving spouse may not inherit the husband’s entire estate. Instead, you may only receive a portion of your husband’s estate and this portion may not be enough to live on for the rest of your lifetime.

Estate planning will not mitigate the loss of your loved one. It will however, insure that things run smoothly and that the surviving spouse or loved ones are financially protected. If you don’t take the time to make these decisions and put them into binding legal documents, the court will make these decisions for you.