When you create your estate plan you might want to implement a strategy that protects your assets in the long-term. This might be especially true if you’re worried about your estate being squandered away or otherwise being used up quickly.
Fortunately, there are strategies you can use to stretch the longevity of your estate, thereby providing long-term support for the people and causes you care about.
How to get more longevity out of your estate plan
There are several estate planning strategies that can help stretch your estate plan. Here are some of them:
- A spendthrift trust that incrementally releases assets to a beneficiary to ensure that they don’t spend them away too quickly.
- A discretionary trust that allows the trustee to determine when and how trust assets should be released.
- An incentive trust, whereby trust assets are only distributed upon the completion of an identified triggering condition.
- A remainder trust, which leaves assets to one beneficiary for their lifetime but then redirects any remaining assets to a second beneficiary.
- A generation-skipping trust that gives assets directly to your grandchildren.
- A dynasty trust that seeks to keep assets protected for as long as you want.
There are other estate planning options you can utilize to give your estate longevity. Just be sure to fully analyze your options so that you can create the custom-tailored approach that’s right for you, your estate, and your loved ones.
Be proactive in creating the estate plan that you want
To implement the estate plan that you want, you need to be proactive in developing the estate planning vehicles that get you to where you want to be. You can’t sit back and expect that everything will play out correctly.