Estate planning is one of those topics most people know they should probably deal with “at some point.”
Unfortunately, “at some point” has a funny way of turning into “not yet,” then “maybe next year,” and eventually “why is my family stuck sorting this out in court?”
That is why Kyle Wasson, CFP® at Inside Edge Capital, recently recorded a video covering the basics of estate planning: what everyone should have in place, when a simple plan may be enough, and when more complex tools may be worth considering.
This is also a re-recorded version of the video. The original version we posted had poor audio quality, so Kyle recorded it again to make the topic easier to follow. Estate planning is already dry enough without making people fight through bad sound.
Before we go further, an important note: Inside Edge Capital is a registered investment advisory firm, not a law firm. This article is for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal or tax advice. For actual estate documents, you should work with a licensed estate planning attorney in your state. What we can do is help explain how the financial planning pieces fit together so you can have a more productive conversation with your attorney, CPA, and advisory team.
Estate Planning Is Not Just for the Ultra-Wealthy
One of the biggest misconceptions about estate planning is that it only matters if you have tens of millions of dollars, a family business, multiple homes, complicated trusts, and heirs waiting around a mahogany conference table.
That is not the case.
Estate planning matters if you own a home. It matters if you have children. It matters if you have retirement accounts, taxable accounts, life insurance, digital assets, or people who depend on you. It also matters if you want someone you trust to make financial or medical decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself.
The key idea is simple: everyone has an estate plan. The question is whether you created it yourself or whether your state created one for you.
And if your state created it for you, you may not like how it works.
Without the right documents and account instructions in place, your family may be forced into a longer, more public, more stressful process than necessary. Estate planning is not only about what happens after death. It is also about what happens if you become incapacitated, who has authority to act, and whether the people you care about have a clear roadmap.
The Essential Estate Planning Documents Everyone Should Understand
A basic estate plan usually starts with a few core items. These are not just for wealthy families. These are the foundational pieces that help protect your wishes, your family, and your financial life.
The first is a last will and testament. A will directs how certain assets should be distributed and can name guardians for minor children. That guardian piece alone makes a will essential for many young families, even if they do not think of themselves as having a large estate.
Kyle pointed out a striking statistic in the video: according to a 2025 study, 76% of American adults do not have a will. That means most adults have not put even this basic instruction in place.
People often put off creating a will because they think they are too young, too busy, or not wealthy enough. But if you have children, a home, investment accounts, or specific wishes about how your assets should be handled, that logic falls apart quickly.
The second key document is a durable financial power of attorney. This allows someone you trust to manage financial matters if you become incapacitated. That could include paying bills, managing accounts, dealing with tax filings, or handling other financial responsibilities when you are unable to do so.
The word “durable” matters because it means the authority continues after incapacity. In many cases, that is the entire point.
The third essential piece is an advance health care directive, sometimes called a medical directive or health care power of attorney depending on the state. This outlines your medical wishes and appoints someone to make health care decisions if you cannot speak for yourself.
These decisions can involve end-of-life care, life support, and other deeply personal matters. Without a clear directive, your loved ones may be left guessing during an already painful time.
That is a terrible moment to ask people to interpret what you “probably would have wanted.”
Beneficiary Designations: The Cheap, Fast, Often-Forgotten Fix
Not every estate planning step requires a lawyer drafting a stack of documents.
One of the most important tasks is simply reviewing your beneficiary designations.
Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and certain other assets can pass directly to named beneficiaries. In many cases, these assets bypass probate entirely if the beneficiary forms are properly completed.
That is a big deal.
Probate is the court process for administering an estate. It can be public, time-consuming, and frustrating. Kyle shared that when he worked part-time as a file clerk at a law firm, he would sometimes carry full balance sheets to probate court. Those records could become accessible as part of a public process.
Most families do not want their financial picture sitting in a court file.
Beneficiary designations can help avoid that for certain assets, but only if they are accurate and up to date. It is not enough to vaguely remember filling out a form years ago. You need to check.
Do your retirement accounts still name the right people? Is an ex-spouse still listed somewhere? Were children born after the form was originally completed? Did a parent, sibling, or prior beneficiary pass away? Did you open a new account and forget to add beneficiaries?
This is one of the simplest estate planning tasks, but it is also one of the easiest to neglect.
Do Not Forget the Digital Side of Your Life
Estate planning used to be mostly about bank accounts, real estate, insurance policies, and physical documents.
Now, a meaningful part of life exists online.
That includes passwords, subscriptions, cloud storage, photo libraries, cryptocurrency keys, online banking access, email accounts, social media accounts, and digital business records.
Kyle mentioned that one client called this a “death binder.” The name is a little intense, but the concept is useful.
The idea is to create an organized record of what you own, where it is held, how it can be accessed, and who should handle it. This can save your executor and your heirs an enormous amount of time. It may also prevent assets from disappearing simply because nobody knew they existed or had the ability to access them.
This does not have to be dramatic. You do not need to sit in a candlelit room labeling a binder “open upon my demise.” But you should have a secure, organized system that gives the right person access to the right information when needed.
When a Simple Estate Plan May Be Enough
For many families, a relatively simple estate plan can address the most important issues.
If you are well below the federal estate tax exemption, you may not need complex trust strategies designed to minimize estate taxes. Under current rules, the federal lifetime estate tax exemption is very high, meaning many households are not at immediate risk of paying federal estate tax.
That does not mean they do not need a plan.
A simple estate plan may focus on avoiding probate, preparing for incapacity, protecting assets from basic liability risks, and making sure assets transfer according to your wishes.
One common tool is a revocable living trust. This type of trust can hold assets during your lifetime while you remain in control as trustee. You can add assets, remove assets, change beneficiaries, or revoke the trust entirely.
The main benefit is that assets properly titled into the trust can avoid probate when you pass away.
Common assets placed into a revocable living trust may include a home, taxable investment accounts, personal property, and other assets that do not already transfer by beneficiary designation.
Another related document is a pour-over will. This acts as a safety net. If certain assets were not titled into the trust during your lifetime, the pour-over will can direct them into the trust after death so they are distributed according to the trust’s instructions.
The important phrase here is “safety net.” It is not a substitute for properly funding the trust. A trust only works as intended if assets are actually titled correctly.
Umbrella Insurance: Not a Trust, But Still Part of the Protection Conversation
Kyle also brought up umbrella insurance as part of a practical estate and asset protection discussion.
Umbrella insurance provides additional liability coverage above your homeowners, auto, or other underlying insurance policies. It may protect you if someone is injured at your home, if you are involved in a serious car accident, or if you face certain lawsuits.
It is not technically an estate planning document. It is an insurance product. But from a planning perspective, it can be an inexpensive way to help protect accumulated wealth from liability exposure.
Kyle made the point clearly: he is not an insurance salesman. The reason this comes up is because umbrella coverage can be relatively affordable compared to the level of protection it provides.
For families with meaningful assets, having no umbrella coverage can be a very avoidable risk.
When Estate Planning Becomes More Complex
Complex estate planning generally becomes more relevant for families with very high net worth, business ownership, significant real estate, blended family concerns, philanthropic goals, or a desire to transfer wealth across multiple generations.
This is where the planning conversation shifts.
A simple estate plan is often focused on avoiding probate, preparing for incapacity, organizing assets, and making sure the right people receive the right assets.
A complex estate plan may focus on minimizing estate taxes, using lifetime gifting strategies, protecting assets, planning for business succession, supporting charitable goals, and creating a multi-generational legacy.
Tools in this category may include irrevocable trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, family limited partnerships, dynasty trusts, charitable remainder trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, and other strategies.
These tools can be powerful, but they are not free, simple, or casual. They can involve setup costs, trustee fees, legal complexity, administrative requirements, and a loss of control over certain assets.
That last point is important. If assets are moved into an irrevocable structure, you generally cannot treat them as if they are still fully yours. That is often the point from an estate tax perspective, but it also means the decision should not be taken lightly.
As Kyle put it in the video, estate planning conversations should not involve “just trust me.” You should be able to see the math, understand the tradeoffs, and know what changes if you use a strategy versus if you do nothing.
Charitable Planning and Donor Advised Funds
Not every advanced planning tool is only for ultra-high-net-worth families.
One example Kyle discussed is the donor advised fund. This can be a useful charitable planning tool for people who give regularly and want to be more strategic about timing, taxes, and investment growth.
A donor advised fund allows you to make a charitable contribution, potentially receive an immediate tax deduction, invest the funds inside the account, and then recommend grants to qualified charities over time.
This can be especially useful in a high-income year. For example, someone approaching retirement who plans to keep giving to charity may choose to front-load several years of giving into a donor advised fund while income is still high. The funds can then be granted out gradually in retirement.
Donor advised funds can also be funded with appreciated securities, which may allow the donor to avoid realizing capital gains while still receiving a charitable deduction.
Again, this is an area where tax advice matters. But as a planning concept, it can be a practical way to align charitable goals with broader financial planning.
The Real Work: Following Through
One of the most important points Kyle made is that many estate plans fail not because the strategy was wrong, but because the follow-through never happened.
Documents get drafted but not signed. Trusts get created but not funded. Beneficiary forms are never updated. Assets are not retitled. Digital information is not organized. The plan exists in theory, but not in a way that actually works.
That is like buying a very expensive safe and then leaving the door open.
The implementation matters.
A typical estate planning process should start with gathering what you already have. That includes wills, trusts, account statements, insurance policies, beneficiary forms, property records, business documents, and digital asset information.
Next, you define your goals. Who should receive what? Who should make decisions if you cannot? Are there charitable goals? Are there minor children? Is there a family business? Are there blended family considerations? Are there assets that create special tax or legal issues?
Then you build the right team. At minimum, that usually means an estate planning attorney. Depending on complexity, it may also include your financial advisor and CPA.
After that comes implementation: signing documents, updating beneficiaries, retitling assets, organizing digital records, and making sure the plan is actually enforceable.
Finally, the plan should be reviewed periodically. Every three to five years may be reasonable for many people, but major life changes should trigger a review sooner. Marriage, divorce, births, deaths, a move to a new state, major changes in assets, business transitions, or changes in estate law can all affect the plan.
A stale estate plan can create its own problems.
The Bottom Line
Estate planning is easy to postpone because it forces people to think about uncomfortable scenarios.
But that is exactly why it matters.
A good estate plan can help your family avoid confusion, reduce unnecessary court involvement, protect your privacy, prepare for incapacity, organize your financial life, and make sure your wishes are actually carried out.
For some families, the right answer may be a simple set of foundational documents, updated beneficiary forms, and a revocable living trust. For others, especially those with significant assets, business interests, charitable goals, or multi-generational planning needs, more complex tools may be appropriate.
The important thing is not to guess, ignore it, or assume “we’ll deal with it later.”
Because if you do not make a plan, there is already a default plan waiting for you.
And as Kyle likes to say, friends do not let friends go without an estate plan.
