Kathryn Bedell, Attorney at Law, York, ME

I’m A Young Parent, How Should I Set Up My Life Insurance Policy?

Young families often don't do estate planning and make simple mistakes that can prove costly down the road.

Many people with young kids to educate and mortgages to pay off will have large term-life insurance policies to cover these expenses if anything happens to them.

Most standard wills will have a trust in place for minor beneficiaries. The Trustee holds on to the money and spends on behalf of the minor, for their benefit until they reach a certain age (i.e., 25 years old).

For this reason, if you have young children, your life insurance should flow through your will to fund these trusts for your children. Instead, we often find that young families will name the children themselves or worse, a brother or sister thinking that they will spend the money on the kids behalf. But then time goes by, people get divorced, life happens. These policies are forgotten.

Part of the Estate Planning process is going through all your assets and making sure details like this are attended to. We offer a sizable discount to young families because they so often neglect this critical issue.

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