If you died tomorrow without a will, your state would decide who gets everything you own. Your estranged sibling might inherit before your longtime partner. Your favorite niece might get nothing. And nobody would have legal authority to make medical decisions on your behalf if you were incapacitated but still alive. Estate planning sounds like something wealthy retirees do with their financial advisors, but it’s really just a set of basic legal documents that protect anyone who has assets, relationships, or preferences about their own medical care. Here’s what you actually need to know.

What Happens If You Die Without a Will

Dying without a will means dying “intestate,” and every state has its own intestate succession laws that dictate exactly where your assets go. These laws follow a rigid hierarchy that has no interest in the nuances of your actual life.

In most states, assets pass first to a surviving spouse, then to children, then to parents, then to siblings, and so on down the family tree. Sounds reasonable until you look at the details. In many states, if you’re married with children from a prior relationship, your spouse and your children split the estate — which can mean your current spouse doesn’t inherit enough to stay in the family home. In some states, a surviving spouse only receives one-third to one-half of the estate when children are present.

Unmarried partners — no matter how long-term — typically receive nothing under intestate succession laws. Neither do stepchildren unless they were legally adopted. Close friends, charitable organizations, or anyone outside the biological/legal family tree are entirely excluded. Several states, including California and New York, have updated their laws to be somewhat more generous to surviving spouses, but the point stands: the state’s formula almost certainly doesn’t match your wishes precisely.

You can look up your specific state’s intestate succession rules through your state legislature’s website or through resources like the Cornell Legal Information Institute at law.cornell.edu.

The Beneficiary Designation Trap

Here’s something that surprises many people: your will does not control what happens to your retirement accounts or life insurance policies. Those assets pass directly to whoever is named as the beneficiary on the account itself — completely bypassing your will and the probate process entirely.

This is both a feature and a potential disaster. If you named your ex-spouse as the beneficiary on your 401(k) twenty years ago and never updated it, your ex-spouse gets that money regardless of what your will says, regardless of whether you’ve since remarried, and regardless of what any court would consider fair. Beneficiary designations are among the most commonly neglected pieces of financial life administration, and the consequences can be severe and irreversible.

Assets that pass via beneficiary designation include 401(k)s, IRAs, Roth IRAs, 403(b)s, life insurance policies, annuities, and payable-on-death (POD) bank accounts. Some people are also surprised to learn that jointly held property with right of survivorship passes automatically to the surviving owner, also outside of the will.

The practical takeaway: review your beneficiary designations every few years and after any major life event — marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, or the death of a beneficiary. Contact your plan administrator, HR department, or insurance company directly to make updates. It takes fifteen minutes and can prevent years of legal battles.

What a Basic Will Actually Does

A last will and testament is a legal document that communicates your wishes after death, but it does several specific things worth understanding individually.

Naming an executor. Your executor (sometimes called a personal representative) is the person responsible for carrying out your wishes — filing your will with the probate court, notifying creditors, paying debts and taxes, gathering assets, and distributing what remains to your beneficiaries. This person should be organized, trustworthy, and ideally local enough to handle administrative tasks. You should always name a backup executor in case your first choice is unable to serve.

Naming a guardian for minor children. If you have children under 18, your will is where you name who would raise them if both parents died. This is arguably the most important reason young parents need a will. Without this designation, a court makes the decision — and while courts try to act in children’s best interests, they don’t know your family the way you do. Discuss your wishes with the person you’re naming before you put it in writing.

Distributing your assets. Your will specifies who gets what — your home, your savings, your car, your personal property. You can be as specific or as general as you like. Many people leave everything to a spouse and then split equally among children, but you can customize distributions in any way you choose.

What a will doesn’t do. A will doesn’t avoid probate — the court-supervised process of validating the will and settling the estate. Probate can be time-consuming (months to over a year in some cases) and becomes a matter of public record. It also doesn’t address incapacity — a will only takes effect at death, not if you’re in a coma.

The Four Other Documents Most Adults Need

A will is just one piece of a complete estate plan. The following four documents address situations where you’re alive but unable to speak for yourself.

1. Durable Power of Attorney (POA)
A durable power of attorney designates someone to manage your financial affairs if you become incapacitated. “Durable” means it remains valid even if you lose mental capacity (a regular POA would lapse). Your agent can pay your bills, manage your bank accounts, file taxes, and handle real estate transactions on your behalf. Without this, your family may need to go through a costly and time-consuming court process to be appointed your legal guardian.

2. Healthcare Proxy (or Healthcare Power of Attorney)
This document names someone to make medical decisions for you when you can’t make them yourself. Your healthcare proxy can consent to or refuse treatment, choose between care options, and generally advocate for you with medical providers. This is separate from a financial POA, and the same person can serve both roles or different people can.

3. Living Will (Advance Healthcare Directive)
While a healthcare proxy names a decision-maker, a living will documents your actual wishes about end-of-life care. Do you want to be kept on life support if there’s no reasonable expectation of recovery? Do you want aggressive intervention or comfort-focused palliative care? A living will gives your healthcare team and proxy clear guidance, and it removes an enormous burden from family members who would otherwise have to make these decisions without knowing your preferences.

4. HIPAA Release
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) restricts who healthcare providers can share your medical information with. Without a signed HIPAA release authorization, doctors may not be able to discuss your condition with your spouse, parents, or adult children — even in an emergency. A HIPAA release names specific people who are authorized to receive your health information.

Online Wills vs. Attorney-Drafted Documents

The rise of online legal platforms has made basic estate planning significantly more accessible. Services like LegalZoom (legalzoom.com) and Trust & Will (trustandwill.com) allow you to create a basic will and supporting documents for a fraction of the cost of working with an attorney.

Trust & Will charges approximately $159 for an individual will-based estate plan or $259 for a couple’s plan, which includes the will, POA, and healthcare directives. LegalZoom’s will packages start around $89–$249 depending on the complexity and level of attorney review you opt into. These prices are subject to change, so check each platform’s current pricing directly.

Online platforms work well for straightforward situations: a single person or married couple with modest assets, no complex business interests, no blended family complications, and no special-needs beneficiaries. The documents are legally valid in most states when properly signed and witnessed.

However, an attorney becomes worth the cost — typically $300–$1,500 or more for a basic estate plan, depending on location and complexity — when your situation involves any of the following: a blended family, significant assets, minor children with special needs, a family business, real estate in multiple states, a desire to minimize estate taxes, or complicated relationships that might invite legal challenges. An attorney can also catch jurisdiction-specific requirements that online platforms might not fully account for.

When a Trust Makes Sense

A revocable living trust is an alternative (or supplement) to a will that holds your assets during your lifetime and transfers them at death without going through probate. You remain the trustee while alive, maintaining full control, and name a successor trustee to step in if you become incapacitated or die.

Trusts make sense in a few specific scenarios. If you own real estate in more than one state, a trust avoids having to go through probate in each of those states. If privacy matters to you, a trust keeps your asset distribution out of public court records. If you have a beneficiary who is a minor, has a disability, or struggles with financial responsibility, a trust lets you set conditions on how and when assets are distributed. And if your estate is large enough to trigger estate taxes (the federal estate tax exemption is $13.61 million per individual as of 2024, though this is scheduled to decrease after 2025), a trust can be a useful planning tool.

A trust is more expensive to set up — typically $1,500–$3,000 or more with an attorney — and only works if you actually fund it by retitling your assets into the trust’s name. An unfunded trust is essentially useless.

Storing and Updating Your Documents

Creating the documents is only half the job. If nobody can find them, they might as well not exist.

Store originals in a fireproof safe at home, and tell your executor, healthcare proxy, and POA agents exactly where they are. Consider leaving certified copies with your attorney if you used one. Some states have official will registries. You can also store digital copies (though originals are typically required for probate) in a secure document storage service.

Share relevant documents with the right people now, not just after you’re gone. Your healthcare proxy should have a copy of your healthcare proxy document and living will. Your financial POA agent should have their document on hand. Your doctor’s office should have your HIPAA release on file.

As for updates: revisit your estate plan every three to five years, and immediately after any major life event — marriage, divorce, a new child or grandchild, a significant change in assets, a move to a new state, or the death of a named beneficiary, executor, or agent. Laws change, relationships change, and your estate plan should keep up.

Estate planning isn’t about expecting the worst. It’s about making sure that if the worst happens, the people you love aren’t left scrambling through courts while grieving, and that your wishes — not a state formula — are what actually govern your affairs.

Sources and Additional Resources
– Cornell Legal Information Institute — Intestate Succession: law.cornell.edu/wex/intestate_succession
– Trust & Will pricing: trustandwill.com
– LegalZoom will packages: legalzoom.com
– IRS Estate Tax information: irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estate-tax
– U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — HIPAA for Individuals: hhs.gov/hipaa/for-individuals

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney in your state for advice specific to your situation.