Single parents may know better than most that planning is an essential part of life. Many single parents are, after all, the sole financial provider for their households. Furthermore, single parents are also the sole bearers of caregiving responsibilities or otherwise arranging for caregiving for their children. It is through planning that single parents can help ensure that both financial needs and caregiving responsibilities are effectively met. Estate planning can take this to the next level as the legal tools put in place can help ensure the family of a single parent can be supported, both in the financial and the caregiver sense, far into an otherwise unpredictable future.
Estate Plans for Single Parents
Single parents, you may worry about your finances. This is understandable, especially when you consider how many single parents are the sole financial supporters in their households. You may worry what would happen if anything should happen to you. If you were temporarily disabled, how would your finances survive? If you were to pass away, would there be financial resources in place for your children? These are things that can be addressed during the estate planning process.
While you plan your estate plan, you can reflect on things like what insurance coverage you currently have, or do not have, and whether it would be a good idea to get any additional coverage. As the sole earner in your household, you may want to get disability insurance coverage. This could provide critical financial support should you become disabled and unable to work. You may also want to obtain or increase available life insurance coverage. Should you pass away, life insurance can provide key benefits to your children or to those who take over caregiving responsibilities of your children.
You may also want to explore other legal tools available to provide continued financial support to your children should you pass away. A trust can be an excellent way to accomplish the providing of stable and continuous financial support to your children. By placing key conditions on how the trust is managed and how, and under what circumstances, trust distributions may be made to beneficiaries, such as your children or their caregivers for the benefit of your children, you can help ensure that the financial resources held in the trust not only last, but are used for the purposes you intended.
Estate planning will also allow a single parent to name a guardian for their child. When the other parent is not in the picture, this can be even more important. By selecting a guardian for your child, you are empowering yourself to select the person who will take over caring for your child should you pass away or be otherwise unable to do so yourself. You can be thoughtful in who you select and discuss your selection with the individual you are considering. Without making such a selection, this important decision will be left to a court without you being able to weigh in on the matter.
Estate Planning Attorney
The team at Verras Law is here to provide trusted legal support to single parents and their families. Let us help you develop a strong estate plan in place that can bring you a level of peace of mind that you may not have thought possible. Contact Verras Law today.