Latest / The Jon Sanchez Show / Woman's Guide To Estate Planning: 10 Things Every Woman Should Know
Transcript
- Jon G. Sanchez: Welcome. I'm John Sanchez, CEO of Specialized Trust and Estate Plans. we're going to discuss women and estate planning. ⁓ before I get started, I want to share with you some data that I found very interesting in regards to life expectancy of women versus men. Now, this comes from the CDC and it's for the year 2024, but released this year, 2026. And states the following: Women, you have a life expectancy of 81.4 years. Men, your life expectancy is 76.5 years. The difference? Women live about 4.9 years longer on average than us men. there's an even more relevant number. For someone that has already reached age 65, the CDC says the remaining life expectancy is as follows. For 65 year old woman, you're gonna live another 20.8 years to the rough age of 85.8 years. A 65 year old man has 18.4 years remaining. Roughly you'll live to age 83.4. So among people who've already made it to age 65, women still have about a 2.4 year longevity advantage over men. So, ladies, here's another reason for today's conversation. to the latest final numbers from the CDC, life expectancy in America is about 76 and a half years for men and 81 and a half years for women. And as I said, women on average are living nearly five years longer than men. So think about what this means from an estate planning perspective. In many marriages, there's a very real possibility that the women will someday be the surviving spouse. if your husband handles the investments, the taxes, the insurance, the bills, and the estate plan, ladies, you cannot build your financial life around the assumption that he'll always be there to handle it. Statistically, there's a meaningful chance that you'll be the one left to handle everything. Your husband's financial knowledge cannot be your estate plan. So let's begin our discussion about how women have a bit more of a challenge versus us men. Ladies, I want start with a question for you. If your husband died tonight, would you know what to do tomorrow morning? Let me repeat that. If your husband died tonight, would you know what to do tomorrow morning? Where are the investment accounts? What does he have in his 401k? How's the house titled? Who's named on the life insurance policy? What bills are on autopay? Where are all those passwords at? Who's your successor trustee? Who do you call first? And maybe right now you're sitting there saying, John, my husband handles all of that. Okay, I get that. That's exactly why we're having today's conversation. And men, don't change for a moment. Make sure you listen closely. Because if you're the one who handles all of the finances in your marriage, one of the greatest gifts that you can give your wife is making sure she doesn't have to become a financial detective while she's grieving about your loss. You see, estate planning isn't simply deciding who gets your money when you die. It's making sure the people you love can actually function when there's no longer someone there to help them. let's get started on my 10 points of a women's guide to estate planning. 10 things I want every woman that is listening right now to know. Number one, know you ⁓ own. yourself, what do we own? And then ask, what do I own? house, bank accounts, investment accounts, 401ks, IRAs, ⁓ life insurance, Business interests, real estate, vehicles, debt, digital assets, I could go on and on. But the question is, where are they? A current asset inventory list is incredibly useful. Sit down with your spouse, write everything out. Say, this is what we have, here's where it is, here are the passwords to get into those different items. You don't have to manage every account in the marriage, but you better know exactly what exists. two, my husband handles the money. Well, let's spend some time here. There's absolutely nothing wrong with dividing responsibilities in a marriage. One handles the investments, one handles household bills, one handles the taxes. Perfect. But the problem is dependency without knowledge. Again, imagine your husband dies unexpectedly. You're not just simply grieving. You're trying to determine where's the money? What's this account? Who's the advisor? When is the property taxes due? What's the insurance policy? What type of insurance is it? Who are the beneficiaries? Where's the trust? What's the passwords? All of that is preventable. A regular financial meeting of the minds, as I like to call it, can help ensure the spouse who isn't handling the day-to-day finances can take over if necessary. What I recommend is sit down on a Saturday morning. You know, no one's going to work, no one's in a big rush. Get your big cup of coffee and sit down and have the financial meeting of the minds. This is what we have. Here's where it is, et cetera. All right, three, your trust isn't just about death. If you became incapacitated tomorrow, who handles your financial affairs? Well, that's estate planning also. Revocable trust, successor trustee, durable financial powers of attorney, healthcare directive, hip authorizations where appropriate. These aren't just death documents, they're what we call life documents. Number four, who makes your healthcare decisions? Let me give you scenario. Let's say you the woman, you're fifty-five years old, you're married. Your husband automatically assumes obviously I'd make her medical decisions, but would you? Do the appropriate documents say you have the legal right to make those decisions for your wife? And what happens, Husband, if you can't act? What if you both got hurt in a car accident? Who's second in charge? Who's the backup agent? Is it your adult daughter, your son, your sister, your friend? Have you actually told them? Now this creates a really useful distinction. Don't choose somebody you love as your agent for your medical or your financial power of attorney. Don't just choose someone you love. Choose somebody capable of making a very difficult decision when you're unable to make it yourself. Number five, what if you become a widow? Let's say the husband has historically handled everything. Then suddenly he's gone. One day you're married, the next day you're the surviving spouse responsible for investments, taxes, the house, insurance, trust administration, social security decisions, beneficiary changes, estate documents. You're responsible for everything. And here's an important misconception. Don't assume every asset automatically passes passes to you, the surviving spouse. Ownership, beneficiary designations, estate documents, and state law, they all come into play. Remember, the time to prepare a spouse to become financially independent isn't after the funeral. Number six, your beneficiaries. When was the last time you actually looked at your beneficiaries on things like your 401k, your 403B, pension accounts, IRAs, on and so forth. Investments that you can name beneficiaries on. When was the last time you actually looked at those? How about you have transfer on death accounts or payable on death accounts? Those are okay, but remember they do nothing regards to incapacity planning. Zero. Those happen upon death. So we want to make sure that we have a revocable living trust when necessary. And here's a big lesson. Your trust doesn't necessarily control everything that you own. Let me repeat that. Your trust doesn't necessarily control everything that you own. Assets can pass in several different ways. Beneficiary designations, joint ownership, probate, or through a trust. And those methods need to coordinate. Let me give you a hypothetical. Let's say your trust says the following everything equally goes to my three children, but the IRA still names your ex husband. Now what do you do? The beneficiary designation matters. Remember, folks, what you or who you name as your beneficiaries on those qualified accounts, the IRAs, 401ks, et cetera. That supersedes who you name as your beneficiaries in your living trust. It supersedes those. So make sure that both documents match. Make sure you have the same percentages and beneficiary designations on those applications for the IRAs, 401ks, et cetera, as you do in your trust. seven, divorce changes everything. Let's go through an example. You, the woman, get a divorce at age 52, 25 years of marriage. You updated your address, you changed your bank accounts, you probably moved, got new insurance, but you never revisited your estate plan. Remember, that estate plan, that revocable living trust that was created when you were married, it doesn't work anymore. You're no longer together. So now you need to make sure that you have the entire estate plan created for you in your change of life. And when I say the entire estate plan, four components. Remember, your revocable living trust. Your poor over will, your medical directive, and your financial power of attorney. Those are your four core documents. Make sure you've updated your beneficiaries. Last thing you probably want to do is have your ex named as a beneficiary on the 401k or life insurance. Who's going to be your new trustee? Who's going to be your executor? Who's going to be your power and medical agents? Don't casually assume divorce law automatically cleans everything up exactly the way that you want. Review it, review it, review it. Number eight, single women, you need estate plans also. Many people think I'm single. Why would I need an estate plan? Well, I'd argue incapacity planning may make the question even more important. handles the finances? Who makes the healthcare decisions when you can't? Who's going to receive your assets? Who has access to all of your information? Who's going to take care of your pets? Who handles the house? Well, if you don't have a spouse, who would naturally be the first person that everyone calls? You need to decide who that person should be. nine, you know, I've often said that women are superhuman beings, right? Everybody relies upon them. They take care of everybody from spouses to children to grandchildren. They work, they do everything. Well, here's my ninth point. Mom is often taking care of everybody else. Think about how many women are simultaneously again helping children, the grandchildren, helping aging parents. We see that a lot. Managing the household. Maybe they're still working. They're helping the spouse. has a plan for mom taking care of them. Let me repeat that. Everybody a plan for mom taking care of them. But my question to you is this Who is planning to take care of mom? Caregiving can also have financial consequences when someone reduces work hours or leaves employment to take care of family. We need to pay attention to things like long-term care, incapacity. Who's gonna help? Where do you wanna live? How will care be paid for? Who has the authority to act? These are all important questions that are asked in our estate plans and answered. See, a good estate plan doesn't just tell your family what to do with your money when you're gone. It tells them how to take care of you you are here. Number 10, don't build an estate plan you don't understand. I don't want a woman or a man, matter of fact, to finish an estate plan meeting and say, you know, my hundred husband understands it. I don't need to understand it. He's got it all handled. No, that's not the way to do it. I want you to be able to answer who is my trustee? Who are my backups? Who makes healthcare decision? Who has the financial power of attorney? Who inherits? When do they inherit? Where's my house titled? Where are my accounts? Who are my beneficiaries? Where are the documents? You don't have to be an estate planning expert, but you should understand your own plan. Now we're gonna play a little game. We're gonna do a little rapid fire. I want to throw these questions out at you and see if you can answer them. Who's your successor trustee? That's the person, if you're not familiar with the term, that again, I call them the big dog. They're the ones that are going to step in when both you and your husband are gone and take care of your estate. Who is your successor trustee? Who's the backup successor trustee? Where is the original trust? Is your house actually titled in the trust? Who's beneficiary of your IRA? Who's beneficiary of your husband's retirement accounts? Where's the life insurance policy? Who makes medical decisions if you can't? Who handles finances if you're incapacitated? Where are all the passwords and access instructions? What happens if your husband dies first? What happens if you die first? Have you discussed the plan with your children? Well, if you answered, I don't know, five times, guess what? You need to sit down and discuss having an estate plan either updated created. Next, I want to give you three women, three different estate plans. Women Number one, this is my first scenario. Let's say she's young. She's age thirty-eight. She's married. She has two children. Let's say they're age five and eight. She has a mortgage. Both she and her husband work. Her biggest issues are guardians for the children, life insurance, for the children. Who's going to manage the money? Does she have the powers of attorney? The healthcare directives? Woman number two, a little bit older, age fifty-eight, recently divorced. She has adult children, but she's got a house, four hundred one K, IRAs, life insurance. Old Trust was created while she was married. Her priority, review everything. Go over my beneficiaries, the trust, the agents, the titling, the retirement accounts. And woman number three, age 72. Well, she's a widow. She has a $2 million portfolio, paid off house, three adult children, existing trust, but it was written 15 years ago. Her questions are completely different than the other two women. She's asking, who's going to take care of me? Is my trust current? Who becomes the trustee? How is my house titled? Do beneficiaries coordinate? What happens if I need long-term care? How do I want assets distributed? Same word, estate planning, but completely different needs. Now I want to give you what I call the John's 10 questions every woman should be able to answer. Grab a pen and paper. Here we go. one, what do I own? How is my home titled? Who are my beneficiaries? Who becomes trustee if I can't serve? Who handles my finances if I become incapacitated? Who healthcare decisions? Where are our important documents? If I'm married, could I run our financial life tomorrow by myself? Does my estate plan still reflect my current family? somebody besides me know how to put the plan into action? Well, if you can't answer those questions, you've identified where things need to start. So this is actually one of the reasons I enjoy the discovery process at specialized trusts and estate plans. I'm not interested only in asking somebody, do you have a trust or do you have an estate plan? I want to know, does the plan fit your current life? a 30-year-old, ⁓ mother with young children doesn't have the same planning concerns as the 58-year-old newly divorced or the woman that is 72 years old and that's a widow. You see, estate planning shouldn't start with a document. It should start with the persons we're trying to protect. That is the very step we take at specialized trust and estate plans. In closing, ladies, if there's one thing I want you to take away from today's topic, is this your estate plan is not your husband's estate plan. It's yours too. You may spend much of your life taking care of everybody else, your husband, your children, your parents, your grandchildren. there may come a day when somebody has to take care of you. And that's why these decisions matters so very much. Know what you own, know where it is, know how it's titled, know your beneficiaries, know your trust, know who can make financial decisions, and know who can make healthcare decisions. if you're married and your husband currently handles financial ⁓ all the finances by himself, sit down together. Not because something bad is going to happen tomorrow, but because someday ⁓ one you is probably going to have to carry on without the other. And love isn't simply making sure your spouse receives your assets. It's making sure they're prepared to manage the life those assets are supposed to support. Your estate plan isn't about preparing to die. It's about protecting the people that you love, protecting your independence, and making sure your voice is still heard when you can no longer speak for yourself. And ladies, that includes protecting you. You've spent a lifetime taking care of everyone else. Your estate plan is where you make sure someone has a plan. To take care of you. you would like your existing estate plan reviewed or don't have an estate plan, either way, please schedule a discovery meeting with me. It's a 30-minute, no cost, no obligation. That's not the way we operate. Discussion. We do a live video call with myself or one of our advisors. And we're going to talk to you and get to know you and find out again if you have an existing trust and estate plan. Does it fit your current lifestyle? If not, we can restate it. If you don't have an estate plan, We're going to start from the beginning and explain to you all the benefits of having a thorough estate plan. But either way, it's all free. There's no obligation. And again, we're going to talk one-on-one like we're doing right now. So if you're interested, please send me an email, John J O N at specializetrust.com, or visit our website. You can make the appointment there. Our website is specializedrust.com. And don't forget, we have what's called the Step Institute on the website. It's in the upper right corner of the website. ⁓ We publish all kinds of educational information there. There's all the blogs that I've written, all kinds of educational documents, et cetera. You can see about the nine different plans that we offer at specialized trust, everything that you need. But most importantly, I hope that we can have an opportunity to sit down, ⁓ I said, for thirty minutes, get to know you, and most importantly, protect you and your family. That's what specialized trust is all about. God bless.