It’s summer time and that means summer vacation time!  Yahoo!  So, let’s pack up the suitcases and the kids and the car and head out.  If you’re like me, in the weeks prior to a vacation, you make a checklist of all of the stuff that’s got to get done before you can leave:  have the mail held at the post office, stop the newspaper delivery, arrange for someone to mow the lawn, arrange for a friend to stop by your house and check on it every couple of days, turn up the thermostat, etc.  So, you spend a lot of time planning and organizing and getting all of your ducks in a row so that you can go on vacation and enjoy leaving your normal worries behind.  Right?  But, are you truly prepared?  Although we hate to think about it, accidents do happen on vacation.  If you are traveling with your spouse, an accident could end up leaving your children without both parents.  We don’t want to think about it, but it happens every day, multiple times around the United States.
In 2016, there were 40,200 traffic deaths in the United States.  In addition to being safety conscious this vacation season, you should consider having an estate plan done before heading out.  Estate Plans aren’t hard to do with the help of a good Estate Planning attorney.  The turnaround time from the initial contact with the law firm until documents are signed can be just a few days, if you are in a time crunch.  Just this spring, I had a husband and wife contact me 2 weeks before they went on a vacation to Cancun together.  They were not only concerned about what would happen to their children in the event that they both perished during the trip, but also because they were leaving in 2 weeks.
No problem – we got them in for an initial consultation right away.  We had a short working meeting a week later and then met a third time to sign documents a couple of days after that.  In fact, we got their entire Estate Planning Package all done, signed, scanned and put away before they even started packing their bags for their trip.  Frankly, even with just 3 or 4 business days, we can put together a comprehensive and affordable Estate Planning package for most families.  You just have to make it a priority, and we’ll make it a reality.  Then, you’ll be able to take that trip with one less worry on your mind.  So, before you get too far down that “pre-vacation to do list”, make sure to give us a call to get the ball rolling on your Estate Plan.