How will your heirs pay for the expenses of your estate? In one simple word – cash – the one thing your heirs will need most to settle your estate when you die. Whether you have a small or large estate, your heirs will need money for expenses. These may include federal and estate taxes, last illness expenses and more.
Without cash, your heirs may have to sell assets or borrow money to pay estate settlement costs. That’s a tragic way to distribute the assets you worked so hard to build.
Financial experts call the amount of cash available to settle your estate liquidity. The more cash you have, the more liquid your estate is.
You can ensure that money will be there to cover estate settlement costs with a well-constructed estate plan. Your plan also helps you preserve more of your assets for your heirs.
Failure to plan for estate settlement costs could reduce your estate by 10, 20 or even 50 percent.
With an estate plan, you can provide the cash to pay your estate settlement costs.
Your estate plan is only as good as the money there to fund it…. in most cases, that money is coming from life insurance. – Deborah J. Wagemann/ Modern Woodmen
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