Longevity and Estate Planning for the Wealthy in 2017

As longevity has been increasing and advances in medical technology may only continue that trend, it presents an estate planning challenge for anyone, but particularly wealthy families. The major reason for this is that it can be challenging to determine when and how to pass on assets to beneficiaries so that those individuals can begin managing those assets on their own. 

Now more than ever, long-term care is a concern for people approaching retirement age and beyond. With good health, a person may lived ten or twenty years beyond their retirement age. One long-term care event, however, could threaten assets significantly if recovering from that event requires assisted living or a nursing home.

It’s not just about potential physical or mental ailments, either. While those certainly can present obstacles without proper estate planning techniques, there’s also the fact that someone entering retirement or moving on to the next phase of their life might not want to be responsible for asset management anymore. This presents an opportunity for beneficiaries to take over control of the assets while the grantor is still alive.