Orange County Estate Planning Attorney James F. Roberts Discusses things to consider when creating and modifying your estate plan and what to do with life insurance once you set up a trust.
One of the questions that is often asked now that I have set up a trust is do you need to change the primary beneficiary of my life insurance once you set up a trust? The majority of people who create a trust do so to avoid probate. If you have a named beneficiary then your life insurance proceeds pass outside probate to start with, so often it is not critical to change the life insurance policy to the trust because the life insurance has a named beneficiary. We have another video we created that focuses on the question of whether you should change your life insurance beneficiary to your trust and what that means for your overall estate planning goals. We encourage you to watch that video and to set up an appointment if you have questions about your specific estate plan and how to best meet your needs and to ensure your wishes are completed.
We offer a many different resources and pamphlets on the subject of creating, updating and implementing estate plans. We also offer a regularly scheduled seminar in our office to help people determine what the best options are for them in their estate planning needs. We hope you sign up for one of our seminars to help you find your best options. We regularly conduct free seminars designed to teach about the benefits of creating an estate plan. The seminars are held on-site at our Anaheim office inside of our “classroom”. We offer light snacks and refreshments to the attendees and the group is often small and intimate, which allows for questions to be asked comfortably and for a very relaxed environment. Please encourage your loved ones to attend the seminar so that they may learn more about the estate planning process and benefits.