Nearly 50% of 55+ Americans have no estate plan

On Behalf of | Mar 31, 2020 | Estate Planning

The fact that most Americans have not done their estate planning is nothing new. It’s been that way for a long time, and you can find many reports claiming that it’s true.

However, the way that some people write this off as unimportant is simple: They assume that younger people don’t really need an estate plan anyway. They think that the people who do need a plan probably have one, while you have a lot of young adults — college students, for instance — who have no plan, and therefore, skew the statistics to make it look more dire than it is.

First of all, even young adults often need an estate plan. Age isn’t a requirement, and there’s no guarantee someone will survive into old age anyway.

On top of that, though, even the assumptions are wrong. Studies have looked at those who are 55 years old and older, for example, and found that roughly half of these individuals do not have an estate plan. It’s hard to argue that it’s just because they’re too young. Many people have adult children by age 55 and they are a decade or less from retirement.

Even so, they often neglect to do their estate planning. It’s a trap any American, at any age, can fall into. People just make excuses and put it off, or they want to do it and never find the time.

No matter why it happens, it can create all sorts of problems for the next generation. It’s important for everyone to really take the time to think about estate planning, their needs and all of the legal options that they have.