Read Time: 4-minute article Estate planning 101 This content is categorized as: Leaving a legacy Having a smart estate plan is essential for everyone—regardless of assets, age or income. Along with helping ensure your assets are distributed according to your wishes, estate planning can also help minimize taxes, protect your beneficiaries and allow you to appoint trusted individuals to make decisions on your behalf if you’re unable to do so in the future. What is an estate plan? You might think estate planning is something you can put off until your later years, or that it's just for the super wealthy, or both. But setting up a clear path for what happens to your property and your family after your passing can help make life for your heirs much easier in a time of stress and grief. An estate plan is a set of legal documents and arrangements that outlines how a person’s assets and affairs should be managed and distributed during
