Do You Have a Will?

If you do not have a will, and you have minor children, get one! 

As an insurance agent, I have been talking about the importance of updated wills to all my clients.  The problem?  When our first child was born, we hurried out and completed our will, durable power of attorney and medical power of attorney. 

Congratulations, one might say, but the problem now, 8 years later, is our son is almost six years old, and we never updated the wills to include him.  Now chances are we would not have to deal with the nasty problems that come from dieing intestate (without a will), because now that my husband has terminal cancer, he will probably pre-decease me.  According to our will everything would come to me.  When Alyn got sick, it really motivated us to update our wills, but still we did nothing.  I just barely avoided an accident in front of me on Interstate 85, and still we did nothing.  Monday, we learned that Alyn's cancer had returned, and his time was running out.  Yesterday, Thursday, we updated our wills.

I understand that no one wants to deal with the possibility of death, but I have to tell you, it is most definitely worse to act when the possibility becomes a reality.

The two main reasons we have wills are:
1.  I do not want to share my assets (example house) with my children, and pay for a very costly guardianship bond, just to have the ability to do something as simple as refinance.
2.  I do not want the courts determining who gets custody of my kids.

Food for thought.