There are some activities that you engage in with the full knowledge that these are ongoing processes, and others that would seem like one-time events. Because a lot of people put off planning their estates for any number of reasons, when they finally get around to it drawing up a plan can seem like a one-shot deal, as it were. However, for people who live their lives carefully, paying attention to the details, estate planning should be looked upon as a process, something that must be tended to like any other exercise in financial positioning.

The different stages of life call for different elements to your estate plan. When you first get married and have children, you may not have accumulated a lot of assets so there is no reason to concern yourself with probate avoidance or trust creation. But you do want to have your advance health care directives and guardianship choices in place to make sure that your wishes are known in the unlikely event of an accident. And it is also important for people in this early stage of adulthood to make sure that they have life insurance that is sufficient to provide for their families should an unexpected tragedy befall them.

So when you are planning your estate early on you know you are going to have to make adjustments as time goes on. When you do start to build wealth, and when your children have children, your estate plan will take on a new level of depth and complexity. As the years pass and your financial, family, and health circumstances continue to change, it will probably be necessary to revisit your estate plan on a regular basis.

The message here is that your estate plan should not be viewed as a static set of documents. Estate planning is an ongoing, reactive process that can require frequent review and revision.

Tags: Advance Planning, Elder Law, Estate Planning, Inheritance Planning