10. Ten Questions To Assess Your Estate Plan - Greg Welborn

It’s important to assess the health of your estate plan. More often than not, people do not adequately prepare for estate planning and retirement. In order to make it easier, we compiled together 10 simple yes or no questions to help you assess your estate plan.

1. Does your family have a mission statement?
2. Can your heirs participate in decisions?
3. Do all your heirs have an option to participate in the management of the family assets?
4. Do all the heirs understand and want to fill that particular role?
5. Have your kids actually reviewed the estate plan?
6. Are you distributing your assets based on age or readiness?
7. Are you creating opportunities and incentives for your heirs?
8. Do the younger children participating in the family’s philanthropic decisions?
9. Does your family consider family unity to be as important as financial success?
10. Does your family communicate well and meet regularly to discuss major changes?

If you answered yes to 7 or more, you are doing great. If you answered yes to 4 – 6 of these, you are well on your way, but there are some holes that you need to review. And lastly, if you answered yes to 3 of less of these questions, that makes you normal. Most people don’t transition assets from one generation to the other successfully. Wherever you happen to be in this journey remember, completing the journey successfully means assessing first where you are and where you are starting from.