Trust Funding – Education is our Goal
At InSight Law, our focus is always on education. We are constantly striving to educate our clients, their families, and advisors around the community. One thing we stress is trust “funding”. Trust funding involves the coordination of all your assets with your trust. This is to ensure all the instructions you lay out in your trust will apply to your assets in the event of a disability or a death.
We often see clients that have setup a trust several years ago and never done anything with it. It eventually becomes just a pretty binder on a shelf. Then, a disability or death occurs and the family goes into that pretty binder and discovers it is rather useless. However, if your assets are properly coordinated with your trust, the trust assets will be managed by the next person you have named as trustee upon your death or disability. This makes a death or disability situation easier for your loved ones as they can avoid dealing with the courts (resulting in less cost). The trust structure also provides additional asset protection for your beneficiaries.
The key is understanding the importance of trust funding. It is important to ask yourself with every asset, “If I become disabled or pass away, what would happen with this particular asset? Who would it go to and how?”. Our InSight Law Maintenance Plan allows us to be a resource for our clients. We guide them through the funding process initially and help them as assets change overtime. It is truly a success for us if our clients understand trust funding and all the benefits they are providing their loved ones.
Note to all our InSight Law Maintenance Plan clients– you will be receiving your Asset Review Report this December. Please pay special attention to your action items listed and return your Asset Review Reports to us with updated values and any new assets. The success of your plan depends on it!