Forbes:  “Estate planning is easy. It’s finite, calculable. What happens when you die? Who gets your stuff? How much will you owe in estate taxes and how can we prevent or prepare for it? You hire a lawyer to draft a will and possibly one or more trusts that provide for what happens when you die. It’s done. Complete. You tuck your documents away in drawer or safety deposit box and sleep well at night, knowing you have taken care of your estate plan. Death is inevitable, so planning for it—while admittedly uncomfortable for some—is relatively easy. Life, on the other hand, is hard.”

The Washington Post:  “Don’t have a will? Then let me ask you this: Do you love your family? Because, if you love and care about them and want to minimize the drama that you may leave after you die, you would get a will. And I don’t mean something done on the computer that you sign and stuff in a folder. Actually, you have a will, just not one that you created. If you die “intestate,” meaning without having a legal will, state laws dictate how your assets will be distributed. Here’s a link on Nolo.com where you can see, according to your state’s law, who is entitled to your assets if you die without creating a will.”

Reuters:  “When you are grieving a departed spouse, the last thing you want to think about is changing the title to your car. Same goes for your house, your bank accounts, the retirement account you are inheriting and anything else of value that now belongs solely to you. Married couples have a certain ease when it comes to inheritance rules, often leaving everything to each other in a mostly unfettered manner. Many people have what estate lawyers call “sweetheart” or “I love you” wills, which means that spouses leave all of their worldly possessions to each other. That is all good when one’s spouse passes away. The survivor, however, is left with a mess of details to sort through, because there is now only one name on all of those joint accounts, and that can cause problems for heirs down the road.”

SmithAmundsen:  “Once couples have children, they are eager to get a plan in place for who will take guardianship of their children. Having children and not having a will or a selected guardian means parents are left to worry about what would happen in the event of their untimely death. For example, if both parents die, leaving no will, and minor children, any money the parents had will pass to the children. For children under the age of 18, the court would then need to supervise any money the children inherit in a conservatorship. “

Wealth Management.com:  “There are important estate planning techniques that aren’t directly affected by legislation and changes in tax law, but that can still make a big impact on wealth preservation. From regularly updating a will to consistently moving assets off a balance sheet, here are five estate planning items that should be added to your client’s to-do list. Schedule Routine (Estate Planning) Checkups Make sure clients regularly update their health care documents and wills. Ask clients to consider whether the individuals named in their documents are still appropriate.”

Financial Advisor:  “If your client is the executor of a family estate, you can warn him or her it will take an average of 800 hours—that’s 20 full workweeks—to settle most estates. That is, if it doesn’t get bogged down in a battle over an amethyst ring or Green Bay Packers tickets, said EstateExec, a company based in the San Francisco area that creates software for estate executors. It takes an average of 16 months to settle an estate, no matter the size, according to an EstateExec survey of 1,200 people involved in estate settlements. For 80 percent of estates, it takes 800 hours of work by the executor to settle, the survey said, and nearly half, 44 percent, of those surveyed were part of, or were at least aware of, family conflicts that erupted in the settlement process.”

New Jersey Law Journal:  “Cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, has value and therefore is increasingly likely to become an estate asset. Due to the nature of cryptocurrency, typical wills and revocable living trusts may not be well suited to efficiently transfer this new type of asset. Consequently, new estate planning questions and clauses are needed.”

Brooklyn Trust and WIll:  “While many people associate the process of estate planning with retirement and owning significant value in assets, the fact of the matter is that quite the contrary is actually true. Estate planning by definition is the process of preparing for the transfer of wealth after death, so if you own anything of value, estate planning becomes necessary if you wish to pass on your assets to any beneficiaries. Further, estate planning becomes particularly necessary if you own a business, as the law may not always coincide with your intentions regarding passing on ownership of the business after your passing.”

Bloomberg:  Money might not buy love, but it can buy better health. And, to live as long as possible, the world’s wealthy are willing to pay up. Over the past few decades, the average person’s lifespan has risen almost everywhere in the world. In China, the U.S. and most of Eastern Europe, the average life expectancy at birth has reached the late 70s, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. People in Western Europe and Japan, meanwhile, can expect to live into their early 80s. Most rich people, however, are counting on living even longer—a lot longer, as in two decades more than average. In a new UBS Financial Services survey, 53 percent of wealthy investors said they expected to live to 100.