Estate Planning Checklist: Every Document, in Order

Dad finally agreed to “get his affairs in order” over Sunday dinner. Monday morning he called to ask what that actually means. He has a will from 1998, a life insurance policy naming your late mother, and a drawer of statements. Nobody knows where to start, or in what order.

📝 Six Core Documents, Created in This Order

An estate plan is a short set of documents covering two events: the day you can no longer make decisions, and the day you die. The American Bar Association lists the same core pieces most planners do. This order makes each one easier to draft than the last.

1. Last will and testament. Names who inherits what, who raises minor children, and who serves as executor. Our guide to making a will without a lawyer covers when a simple will is enough.
2. Revocable living trust, if you need one. Holds property during life and passes it without probate at death. Not everyone needs one. The next section explains who does.
3. Durable financial power of attorney. Names an agent to pay bills, file taxes and manage accounts if you cannot. “Durable” means it survives incapacity, which is the whole point.
4. Healthcare power of attorney and advance directive. One names a medical decision maker, the other states your treatment wishes. Our guide to advance directives, living wills and powers of attorney sorts them out.
5. HIPAA release. A one-page authorization that lets doctors share records with the people you name, so your agent is not stonewalled at the front desk.
6. Letter of instruction. Not legally binding, but the page families use most: accounts, funeral wishes, who to call. See what a letter of instruction should include.

🏛️ A Revocable Living Trust Is Optional, and These Four Situations Are When It Earns Its Cost

A revocable living trust is a container you create and fund while alive. You stay in control, you can change or cancel it, and the successor trustee you name takes over at incapacity or death without a court. It costs more to set up than a will, and it only works for assets you actually retitle into it.

If none of these apply, a will plus the right beneficiary forms often does the job. Pricing for both routes is in how much estate planning costs.

🎯 Beneficiary Designations Override the Will, So Check Every One of Them

This is the step that surprises families. Any account with a named beneficiary passes directly to that person by contract, no matter what the will says. Dad’s 1998 will can leave everything to his children, and the life insurance still goes to the ex-spouse named on the form in 1998.

Write down each account, the named beneficiaries and the date you last confirmed them. In CareTabs that list sits in the Finances tab next to the statements, so the executor sees the designation and the account in one place.

📊 Most Families Have Not Done This Yet, and the Tax Worry Is Usually Misplaced

If this checklist feels overdue, you are in the majority. Two large surveys in the past year found that fewer than one adult in three has a will, and more than half have none of the core documents at all. The most common reason given is simply not getting around to it.

That last figure matters because many parents put off planning out of fear of “the death tax.” For 2026 the federal estate tax applies only above $15 million per person. A handful of states tax smaller estates, but for most families the point of this checklist is not taxes. It is making sure the right person can act, and the right person inherits.

📋 The Asset Inventory Is the Page the Executor Will Actually Use

The National Institute on Aging’s advice is to keep the important papers in one place and tell one trusted person where that place is. The inventory is that place in list form. It does not need values to the dollar. It needs every account, where it is held, and how to reach it.

Add the professional contacts at the bottom: attorney, accountant, financial advisor, insurance agent. These names save an executor days of searching.

🔐 Where Each Document Should Live, and Who Needs Access Before Anything Happens

Signed documents only work if the right person can produce them. The original will usually belongs with the drafting attorney or in a fireproof box at home. Avoid a safe deposit box for the will alone: in many states the box is sealed at death until the executor has authority, and the executor gets authority from the will inside the box.

The powers of attorney and healthcare documents need to be reachable on an ordinary Tuesday, because that is when the stroke or the fall happens. Give the named agent a copy now, give the doctor’s office the healthcare forms, and keep a scan where the family can open it from a hospital waiting room. The guide to what a power of attorney can and cannot do explains why the agent should also read it before the emergency.

🔁 Review the Plan After Any of These Events, and Every Three to Five Years Regardless

An estate plan ages. Beneficiaries die, children marry, laws change, accounts move. NIA suggests checking your file every year for anything new. Most planners name a shorter list of events that call for a full read-through, plus a calendar reminder every three to five years when nothing has changed.

Note the review date on the document itself. Dad’s 1998 will is not wrong because it is old. It is wrong because nobody has read it since.

🗂️ Keep the Whole Checklist in One Place the Family Can Open

Most estate plans do not fail in court. They fail in a kitchen, when the people who need the documents cannot find them. The fix is less about law and more about filing.

CareTabs gives each person you look after a Legal tab for the will, the trust, both powers of attorney, the advance directive and the HIPAA release, and a Finances tab for the asset inventory, the statements and the beneficiary list. The Insurance tab holds the policies, and the Passwords tab holds the login plan the letter of instruction points to. Everything is protected with AES-256, bank-level encryption.

Share read-only with the executor and both agents today, so the first time they open the documents is not the day they need them. Dad can keep admin rights and update the review date himself. If a parent has already passed and the documents never came together, AfterCare walks the family through settling the estate step by step.