Estate Planning
Make a difficult time a little easier.
What is estate planning?
Estate planning isn't just for people with a lot of land or wealth. It's all about making sure that if something happens to you, your family won't be burdened by speculating on what you may have wanted. It gives them the freedom to grieve and the comfort of knowing they're honoring your wishes. Having a plan for your estate — your home, your money, and your possessions — means you can continue to help your family reach goals you set together, even after you're gone.
Your advisor will help you look at your investments, insurance policies, savings, and overall goals so you can create a plan designed to set your family up for financial success in the event of your passing.
Take the next step.
Our financial advisors can help with your estate planning and show you how it fits into your bigger financial plan.
Let's TalkHow estate planning works with your financial plan
Of course, there's your will — a set of instructions that tells your family who should get what and can name a guardian for any of your children under 18 years old (if necessary). You should create documents to designate who should make financial and medical decisions if you can't make them yourself. But that's just part of it.
Your Northwestern Mutual advisor can help you coordinate your estate plan with your other advisors like attorneys, accountants, and tax professionals to do things like set up trusts, minimize estate taxes and administrative costs, protect your estate from mismanagement, and more. You can even talk with them about how to minimize taxes paid on the inheritance you leave behind.
Estate planning can help you:
- set up trusts for your kids.
- divide up property.
- direct charitable donations.
- reduce your estate's administrative costs.
- eliminate or reduce gift and estate taxes.
- protect your estate from mismanagement.
- protect your estate from the claims of creditors and exes.
The shortest known wills are only three words long, reading "all to son" and "all to wife."
