If you are looking for ways to ensure that your loved ones are well-protected in the event of your death, consider the advantages of a life insurance trust. A life insurance trust is a form of legal agreement that puts the grantor’s life insurance into a trust. The designated trustee…
There’s no way around it: long-term care in the United States is expensive. At McCulloch & Miller, we help families plan for the later years of their loved ones’ lives, and for many clients, this can be a daunting process. After several decades of working in the industry, there are…
A buy-sell agreement is a legal provision of an estate plan that details how the estate owner’s business will transition to different ownership when he or she dies. Buy-sell agreements are critical for business owners’ estate plans, as they help ensure that a business can continue to thrive even if…
Many of our clients have causes or organizations that matter deeply to them and that they want to financially support. There are many ways to incorporate charitable giving into your estate plan, and the tool you end up choosing to structure your charitable giving will depend on your own goals…
Cryptocurrency, compared to other kinds of assets, is relatively new, and the legal landscape around cryptocurrency is still developing. How, then, do individuals with cryptocurrency incorporate the asset into their estate plan? There are several basic considerations that can be helpful to keep in mind when deciding how to make…
When you go through a divorce, does your estate plan automatically update to remove your ex-spouse? Or are there steps you need to take to make sure everything is in line with your wishes? At McCulloch & Miller, we consistently tell our clients that they should update their estate plans…
It is natural to want to set your children up for success after you are gone. How does naming children as beneficiaries to an estate plan work? How does the process look different if the children are minors? These are important questions to consider. On today’s blog, we explain how…
For many of our clients and their loved ones, pets are a part of the family. It therefore makes sense to include a provision in these clients’ wills or estate plans to make sure their pets are well-protected. One mechanism that pet owners can insert into their estate plans to…
If you own a farm or a ranch, it is important that you are thinking through best practices for including that property in your estate plan. Life is full of the unexpected, and you never know when you might need a solid plan in place for what will happen to…
Do you own a small business? Have you accounted for that business in your estate plan? If you have, this is a good first step in protecting your business in the long-term future. After you die, your small business might be subject to the probate process. As part of the…