estate planning

The Best Gift for Mom is Taking Care of Your Estate Plan

Are you struggling to find the right gift for Mom that is both practical and loving? Well look no further than making sure your estate plan is in the best shape possible. Have you been putting off creating an estate plan or making important updates to your plan? Has your Mom been doing the same but you know there are things that need to be done? Taking care of yourself is the best gift you can give to your Mom. Statistics and research shows it can also be a good example to parents and a conversation-starter about estate planning. According to recent research, only 32% of Americans have an estate plan, and the percentage of older adults who have an estate plan is in decline. Younger generations have become more proactive about making estate plans, according to recent research. Millennials started estate planning earlier than Gen X or Boomers. Gen

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Estate Planning Pop Quiz

Posted by Robert L. Arone August means school is back in session or just around the corner, signaling the return of new school supplies, homework, and pop quizzes. Try your hand at this estate planning pop quiz to see if your knowledge of estate planning makes the grade. Question #1: True or false? The only people involved in an estate plan are the client and the estate planning attorney who drafts the documents. Answer: False. Many advisors such as financial planners, certified public accountants (CPAs), and insurance agents play an important role in the estate planning process. For example, one of the first steps in creating an estate plan is understanding what property the client owns. This may include tangible property such as real estate, vehicles, and collectibles, as well as intangible assets such as retirement accounts and insurance policies. A client’s advisors can help the estate planning attorney understand everything the client owns

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Help Clients Celebrate Earth Day with These Environmentally Friendly Burial Options

Posted by Robert L. Arone When it comes to death and what to do with a deceased’s remains, most people think of only two options: burial or cremation. However, these options are not particularly environmentally friendly. Burial, which is arguably the worst option from an environmental standpoint, uses an estimated 100,000 tons of steel, 1.5 million tons of concrete, 77,000 trees and 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid every year.[1] Some of that 4.3 million gallons of carcinogenic embalming fluid likely leaks into the earth, polluting our water and soil. Cremation, often considered the greener option, is not much better. Some estimate that one cremation uses about as much gas and electricity as a 500-mile road trip and gives off around 250 pounds of carbon dioxide.[2] For those clients that are more environmentally minded, here are some nontraditional, eco-friendly burial ideas. An added benefit is that many of these environmentally friendly ideas

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What Will Happen If Your Clients’ Loved Ones Become Disabled?

Posted by Robert L. Arone We all plan for “just-in-case” scenarios. When packing for our week-long vacation, we throw in a rain jacket even though the weather forecast is sunny—just in case. When helping clients plan for the future, it is also important to consider what will happen just in case one of our clients’ loved ones becomes disabled. We tend to think that disability is something that affects other people. But approximately 61 million adults in the United States live with a disability—that is one in four adults.[1] And more than one in four twenty-year-olds will become disabled before reaching retirement age.[2] Disability is unpredictable, and accidents or serious physical or mental conditions, such as cancer or mental illness, can happen to anyone at any age. As helpful as it would be when advising our clients, no one has a crystal ball to see into the future. We do not know when a

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Presidential Estate Planning Lessons You Can Use to Advise Your Clients

Posted by Robert L. Arone February 21 is the day on which we celebrate several US presidents who made noteworthy contributions to our country. As with any discussion that involves politics, a discussion about US presidents risks generating a variety of opinions about which reasonable minds can disagree. However, politics is not the focus of this month’s newsletter. Instead, our aim is to examine a few of the important lessons we can learn from the estate planning of some of our country’s most famous political leaders. Armed with these important lessons from history, you can help your clients make better decisions for their own estate planning. George Washington Washington was arguably the most universally beloved and revered US president. Volumes have been written about this man and what he accomplished during his life. One significant achievement that few people know about is the care Washington took to ensure that his

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