If you are in the prime of your life, you probably have not given much thought to the possibility of becoming incapacitated anytime in the near future. The odds of that happening, however, are higher than you realize. Moreover, if you didn’t plan for the possibility, the consequences could have a significant negative impact on your life. With that in mind, the incapacity planning attorneys at Legacy Care Law Firm encourage you to get prepared for the possibility of your own incapacity.
What Are My Odds of Becoming Incapacitated?
During their working years, most people choose not to focus on the possibility of death or incapacity. We all tend to take a “that won’t happen to me” attitude. Oddly, while most people do nevertheless plan for the possibility of their own death by executing a Last Will and Testament, they do not plan for incapacity. Before you brush off the need to plan for your own incapacity, consider the following statistics published by the American Bar Association (ABA):
- Over 36 million Americans today are classified as disabled.
- Disabled individuals represent 12 percent of the total population.
- 50 percent of the disabled population in the U.S. are between the ages of 18 and 64.
- Just over one in four of today’s 20-year-olds will become disabled before they retire.
- 8.8 million workers, representing over 5 percent of the workforce, are receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) today.
What Might Happen If I Fail to Plan for Incapacity?
Along with pointing out the surprising likelihood that you will suffer a period of incapacity before you reach retirement age, it also helps to understand what could happen if you fail to plan for the possibility of your own incapacity. A catastrophic car crash, a workplace accident, or a sudden and severe illness could leave you incapacitated tomorrow. If that happened, who would take over control and management of your assets? Who would make medical treatment decisions for you if you couldn’t make them yourself? Who would take over the care of your minor children? Someone would need to fulfill all these roles and without an incapacity plan in place indicating who that someone should be a judge would have to make the decision for you.
How Do I Get Prepared for the Possibility of Incapacity?
To ensure that you are prepared if incapacity strikes and that your wishes are honored, you need to incorporate an incapacity plan into your comprehensive estate plan. Among the numerous estate planning tools and strategies that can help with incapacity planning are:
- Revocable living trust. A revocable living trust is a trust that can help you with incapacity planning by allowing you to appoint yourself as the Trustee of the trust and appoint a spouse, adult child, or another trusted person as the successor Trustee. You then transfer major assets, such as your home, into the trust. As long as you are capable, you continue to manage the trust assets as you always have. If, however, you become incapacitated, control of the trust assets easily transfers to your chosen successor Trustee without the need for court intervention or supervision.
- Advance directive. An advance directive ensures that your wishes with regard to healthcare will be honored. A Living Will lets you state your wishes regarding end-of-life care and ensures that physicians will honor those wishes. For example, if you are near death and your Living Will states that you do not want life-sustaining treatment, your treating physicians must comply. Another type of advance directive, known as a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care in New Hampshire, allows you to appoint an Agent. This person will make healthcare decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself because you are incapacitated.
- Durable Power of Attorney. A Power of Attorney is a legal document that lets you grant an Agent the legal authority to act on your behalf in legal transactions or make legal decisions for you. A general power of attorney gives someone broad authority to act for you while a limited Power of Attorney only gives someone the authority specifically enumerated in the POA document. Making a Power of Attorney durable ensures that the authority granted to your Agent survives your incapacity.
- Business Succession planning. If you are a small business owner, incorporating a business succession plan into your overall estate plan is the best way to make sure that your business runs smoothly during a period of your incapacity. It can also dictate what should happen to the business if your incapacity becomes permanent or results in your death.
Contact Our Incapacity Planning Attorneys
For more information, please join us for an upcoming FREE seminar. If you have additional questions about what you need to do to be prepared for the possibility of your own incapacity, contact our incapacity planning attorneys in our North Andover, Woburn, and Beverly offices at (978) 969-0331. Our Salem and Nashua, New Hampshire office can be reached at (603) 894-4141.
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