How Often Should You Update Your Will or Estate Plan?

Introduction: Estate Planning Is Not “Set It and Forget It”

Life changes. Your will and trust might become outdated as you gain new assets, marry, have children, or divorce. You need to keep your estate plan updated and valid.

In this guide, we will go over when and how often you should review your estate plan, key life events that trigger a change, and mistakes to avoid.

Why Estate Plans Need Regular Updates

Laws change

Laws dictate how taxes, inheritance, and components of estate planning work. However, tax and inheritance laws can shift. These changes may impact your estate’s structure or tax burden. Staying up to date with tax and estate laws is important to ensure you’re not losing money and are getting all the possible advantages.

Life evolves

Marriage, children, divorce, or new property can make your old plan irrelevant. You will need to make the necessary changes to your beneficiaries, trustees, and other designations.

For example, if your relationship with someone sours, you likely want to remove them from your will. If you marry your true love, you want to ensure your estate plan protects them. If you buy a new house and want your spouse to inherit it, you should edit your estate plan. Estate plans should be modified as life evolves.

Technology changes

In the past decades, there have been technological advances that impact the financial world. Digital assets are exceedingly common, with many people possessing online accounts and wallets. Cryptocurrency is a special type of digital asset that often requires special access methods and keys.

Goal

To keep your estate plan legally valid and aligned with your needs, you will need to review it after major changes. In addition, there may be tax implications you need to consider as your estate grows or shrinks.

The General Rule: Review Every 3–5 Years

A review every 3 to 5 years is best practice because life and financial situations evolve gradually. Having regular reviews can prevent costly oversights. When a change occurs in your relationships or health, it is easy to overlook how this impacts your estate plan unless you check it periodically.

Checklist for periodic reviews

• Does your will still reflect your beneficiaries?
• Are your executors or trustees still the right choice?
• Have laws in your state changed?
• Are your new assets and accounts included?

Pro tip: Set a recurring reminder to review your documents every few years. You can use an app alert, calendar notifications, email reminders, or your phone.

Life Events That Require Immediate Updates

Marriage or Divorce

Remember to update your beneficiary designations to ensure your spouse is (or isn’t) included as desired.

Note that in some places, divorce can impact your beneficiary designations. An automatic revocation is obviously useful for cases where people have vicious divorces and end up forgetting about their life insurance policies. However, amicable separations happen as well, and in those cases, the policyholder might need to manually add the ex-spouse back to their policies.

To be safe, always review your beneficiary choices across wills, trusts, life insurance, and other estate plans when there is a marriage, divorce, or other significant relationship change.

Birth or Adoption of a Child or Grandchild

Estate plans involve adding guardianship provisions if you have a new child or grandchild. If you are a child’s parent or guardian, it is crucial to establish guardianship in a will. This means mentioning who you want to have legal guardianship of the child in case you pass away. Otherwise, the court would assign a close relative to be the guardian or place them in foster care. To have control over your child’s circumstances, name a legal guardian of your minor children in case of your death.

Inheritance planning is another crucial component of estate planning to consider when there is a new birth.

Death of a Loved One

If a loved one passes away, you may need to modify your estate plan. This could mean changing who is your beneficiary, trustee, and/or executor.

Major Financial Changes

If you have had any major financial changes in your life, make sure to change your estate plan as needed. Most of the time, it makes sense to add these new major assets to your will or trust.

Here are examples of major financial changes that could trigger a change in your estate plan:

• Inheritances
• New businesses
• Windfalls
• Real estate
• Debt

Relocation to a New State or Country

If you move to a new state, it is time to look at the local estate laws. Laws vary by state and you will need to review your estate plan for compliance.

For those moving to a different country, it becomes even more important to review your estate plan.

Check out our guide on What Happens to Life Insurance When You Change States or Move Abroad? for more information.

Health Changes

An advance directive for healthcare is an important part of estate planning. Advance healthcare directives are legal documents that outline your medical wishes. For example, it should go over what kind of treatment you reject, whether you want a DNR, and other medical preferences you have.

People gain new insight and opinions regarding their health all the time. As you have major health or life changes, it is a good idea to modify your estate plan to reflect your current wishes. This may mean changing your powers of attorney or healthcare directives. Providing up-to-date information ensures that if you become incapacitated, your agents will know how to fulfill your medical wishes.

Changes in Relationships

People come and go; our trust in others comes and goes as well. If you have any major changes in relationships, you would likely need to update who you trust to manage finances, medical care, or inheritance. Go through your designations (e.g. beneficiaries, trustees, and powers of attorney) to see what you need to change.

Updating Specific Documents in Your Estate Plan

Your Will

The will is the first component of an estate plan that most people create. It can list your beneficiaries, what assets each beneficiary receives, and guardianship choices of any minor children. Your will can be modified and should reflect new beneficiaries, assets, or executors.

Trusts

Trusts are legal documents that provide more options to asset protection, ownership, and distribution. Revocable trusts can be easily modified, and should be updated if you want to revise terms, trustees, or add new assets. Irrevocable trusts are more difficult to change, requiring beneficiary consent or court orders.

You may also want to establish new trusts as your situation and goals change. Trusts offer significant asset protection value, and specialized trusts like Special Needs Trusts can make a huge difference for you and your loved ones.

Power of Attorney

Signing a power of attorney gives the designated agent (AKA attorney-in-fact) the legal authority to make choices to carry out your wishes. You can add clauses to your power of attorney to specify when, how long, and for what purpose your agent can act on your behalf.

If your trust levels or relationships change, make sure to change your agents as needed. Otherwise someone malicious may still have power of attorney and be able to make major legal, financial, or medical choices for you.

Healthcare Directive

Your medical preferences and proxies should be current. If you have relationship changes or know someone is unreliable or unwilling to be your healthcare proxy, it is important to modify your medical power of attorney. In addition, if you have any new medical treatment preferences, ensure your healthcare directive is up-to-date.

Beneficiary Designations – Review life insurance, 401(k)s, IRAs, and bank accounts regularly.

Tip: Use platforms like LegalZoom for quick updates to simple documents before consulting an estate attorney for complex changes.

How to Review and Update Your Plan Effectively

1. Start with a document audit

First, gather all wills, trusts, insurance policies, and account designations when it’s time to review and update your estate plan. You may want to make a spreadsheet or checklist of all major documents so that whenever it’s time to make a change or review, you can easily see what documents need to be inspected.

2. Identify outdated details

Outdated examples include:

• Old addresses
• Deceased beneficiaries
• Ex-spouses
• Closed accounts

3. Consult professionals

Complex estates benefit greatly from expert assistance. Even for regular estates, it is a good idea to consult with experts just to ensure you have everything correct. You can pick an estate attorney for legal accuracy, a financial advisor to align your estate goals with investments and be aware of tax implications, and use insurance providers like Ethos to ensure your life insurance supports your current plan.

4. Sign and store properly

Re-sign updated documents, notarize where required, and store securely. Generally, people store original documents in a fireproof box, like a bank safe. Copies should be given to judiciaries and trusted loved ones.

5. Inform key people

No matter how well secured your documents are, if no one can access them, it will be a problem later down the line. Make sure your executors, trustees, and attorneys-in-fact know their roles and where key documents are kept. This prevents confusion, delays, and disputes.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Forgetting to update after major life events
• Not revising digital or online accounts
• Failing to fund trusts
• Assuming a will automatically updates beneficiary accounts
• Letting outdated guardianship or trustee appointments stand
• Failing to communicate changes with family members

How Modern Tools Make Updating Easier

Estate planning used to be inaccessible and expensive for most people. With no idea how and where to begin, many had to hire attorneys and spend more resources into seeing what to do, or resigning themselves to a simple will with less asset protection. Thanks to modern tools, creating and updating your estate plan has become easier than ever.

LegalZoom

LegalZoom is an online platform that is excellent for all things estate planning. It offers simple, affordable online updates for wills, trusts, and powers of attorney. You can make valid documents at the tip of your fingers.

Ethos

Life insurance is a reliable way to protect your loved ones. It is particularly crucial for main or sole income earners of the family, since an unexpected incident can mean significant financial difficulties. A life insurance’s death benefit claim can provide your loved ones with hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more, to deal with everything from groceries to mortgage payments.

However, buying a new life insurance policy can be daunting. We recommend using an easy life insurance management option that integrates with estate planning goals, such as Ethos.

Digital organization

You can use encrypted storage for digital wills, account passwords, and advance directives. Just make sure that your trustees, executors, agents, and attorneys know how to access the relevant accounts and storages.

Final Thoughts: Keeping Your Legacy Current

As convenient as it would be, estate planning isn’t a one-time task. Life events can trigger estate plan shifts, and it is good practice to schedule regular reviews to remain up-to-date with the law and relationship changes.

We recommend using an online platform like LegalZoom to affordably and easily create valid legal documents. A digital estate planning platform is simple to manage because everything is in one secure location.