Warning: 6 Critical Factors for Parents with Minor Children, Part II

In our last blog, we detailed three important factors to consider for parents with minor children when planning. These included choosing a guardian, choosing how and when your assets will be disbursed, and choosing who will administer your assets to your children. Click here to check out Part I and learn more about these factors.

In this blog, we continue our discussion of important factors to consider when planning with minor children by detailing the final three things you need to think about. Minor children are reliant on you for nearly every aspect of their lives, and the financial aspects in particular. Make sure your plan reflects their minor status and properly provides for them in a way that will last.

4) Is your estate large enough to provide them with the life you want them to live?

You should think about how much your estate is worth and whether or not you feel that would be sufficient for providing for your minor children’s needs should you and your spouse pass away. If you do not feel comfortable with how much will be left for them, you may want to look into the possibility of obtaining life insurance coverage and plan for how you want the insurance payout to be disbursed to your kids if you die.

5) Is your estate big enough for estate taxes?

How you decide to structure your estate planning with regard to providing for your minor children will be greatly affected by whether or not your estate is big enough that you will have to pay estate taxes. If your estate is worth more than $5.43 million per parent, you will want to utilize some advanced planning methods to help ensure that your children are able to receive as much of your estate as possible. For most parents, though, this is not an issue under the current tax laws.

6) Incapacitation

Even if you do not have minor children—but especially if you do—you need to make plans for what happens if you and your spouse are incapacitated. Who will care for your kids while you are incapacitated? Who will make decisions regarding your medical care if both you and your spouse are unable to do so? An Advanced Healthcare Directive will detail your wishes should you become incapacitated and be faced with an end-of-life decision, and help ensure that your kids are provided for in accordance with your wishes if you are unable to do so as a result of incapacitation.

For more information and help with regard to estate planning when you have minor children, please contact the Law Offices of John Mangan and let us help you make a plan that will protect and provide for your children if the worst were to happen to you. And check out Part I of this blog for more tips on estate planning when you have minor children.