A family called me after losing their mother. She had a will, properly signed and perfectly valid. But it didn't tell anyone who had legal authority to be with the children in the first 72 hours, who could pay the mortgage while the accounts were frozen in probate, or how she actually wanted her kids raised.

She had done some estate planning. She just hadn't done enough.

August is Make-A-Will Month, and the urgency is real. Trust & Will's 2026 Estate Planning Report, a nationally representative survey of 5,000 U.S. adults fielded in early 2026, found that only 26% of adults currently have a will, down from 31% the year before, and 56% have no estate planning documents at all. The nudge matters. But a will and a real plan are not the same thing, and most families don't find that out until the moment it is too late to fix it.

Here is what your family actually needs.

Why Will Ownership Is Falling, Not Rising

Most people still don't have a will for reasons that are remarkably consistent: they believe they are too young, they think they don't have enough assets to make it worth doing, they find the conversation uncomfortable, or they have simply never gotten around to it.

Make-A-Will Month exists because people need an annual push. And the push matters. Getting something in place is better than getting nothing in place.

But here is the more important reality: many of the people who do have wills are walking around with documents that are outdated, incomplete, or that don't accomplish what they think they do. A will drafted when the first child was born may not account for a second child, a divorce, a remarriage, or the fact that the named guardian moved across the country. A will sitting untouched in a drawer for fifteen years may name someone who has since passed away.

The bottom line: Not having a will is a real problem. But having one and assuming your family is protected can be just as dangerous.

What a Will Can Do (And What It Cannot)

A will does important things in estate planning. It directs who receives your assets. It can name a guardian for your minor children. It lets you express your wishes for your belongings and your estate.

What a will cannot do is almost never explained at the moment you sign one.

A will does not avoid probate. In most states, any assets that pass through a will must go through probate, which is a public court process that can take months or years and costs your estate money along the way. During that time, your assets are frozen. Your family cannot access what you left them while the courts work through it.

A will does not protect your family if you become incapacitated rather than die. If you are in an accident or suffer a medical event and cannot make decisions for yourself, your will does nothing. You need separate legal documents, typically a healthcare directive and a financial power of attorney, for someone to have legal authority to act on your behalf.

A will does not automatically control assets with beneficiary designations. Your retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and jointly held property pass outside your will entirely. If those designations are outdated, the will cannot override them.

The bottom line: A will is an important first step in estate planning. By itself, it does not create the protection most families assume it does.

The Piece Most Parents Forget Entirely

For parents with minor children, the most urgent reason to have a plan is not your assets. It is your kids.

Here is what most families do not think about: if both parents die, there is a window of time before any legal proceeding can happen. In those first 72 hours, there may be no one with legal authority to pick your children up from school, take them to a doctor, or ensure they are somewhere safe and familiar. A will names a guardian for the long term. It does not address what happens in that first critical window.

In my planning sessions, I always ask parents: have you thought about who has legal authority in the first few days, not just the long-term guardian? The answer is almost always no.

And even once a guardian is named, a will alone does not answer the most important questions. Does your chosen guardian know how you want your children raised? Have you had a real conversation about your values around education, technology, money, and faith?

Does the guardian have the financial support they would need without it becoming a burden? What happens if that guardian later becomes unable or unwilling to serve?

This is where the Kids Protection Plan® matters. Beyond naming a guardian, this part of a Life & Legacy Plan ensures your children are never taken into the care of strangers, never left in a gap between emergency and legal proceedings, and always in the hands of someone who knows your wishes. A will names a guardian. The Kids Protection Plan equips that person to step into your role.

The bottom line: The 72-hour window matters as much as the long-term plan. Most families have addressed neither.

What Estate Planning Looks Like When It Actually Works

Make-A-Will Month is a good prompt. But the goal is not a signed document sitting in a drawer. The goal is a plan that works when your family actually needs it.

Through the Life & Legacy Planning® Session, I work with families to build something complete: a plan that avoids probate where possible, protects children immediately through a Kids Protection Plan, puts the right people in the right legal roles, and coordinates with your financial advisor and accountant to make sure every piece aligns. It gets reviewed and updated as life changes. Documents alone don't accomplish that. A relationship does.

Documents are tools. A will is a tool. A trust is a tool. The real protection comes from a trusted advisor who helps you think through what your family actually needs, not just what the minimum legal requirement is.

The bottom line: A Life & Legacy Plan is built around your actual life and your actual family. It is how you become a thoughtful steward of what you have spent a lifetime building.

A Plan Built Around What You Actually Value

Most estate planning conversations start with fear, and fear is a reasonable place to start. But the families I work with who feel most at peace with their plan have moved through the fear and into something more useful: clarity about what they care about, and a deliberate decision to act on it.

A Life & Legacy Plan is not just a legal structure. It is a chance to get aligned with your own values.

Who do you trust with your children's wellbeing, and have you told them why?
What do you want your children to understand about how you thought about money, responsibility, and family? What does it mean to you to be a thoughtful steward of the relationships and wealth your life has built?

These are not questions a form can answer. They are conversations. The right planning relationship creates the space to have them, and the documents that come out of those conversations are built around something real: not just what you own, but what you stand for.

Planning from that place is not just more meaningful. It produces a better plan, one your family can actually use, because it reflects who you are and what you intended, not just the minimum legal requirement.

The bottom line: The best plans are not built around fear. They are built around what you value. That is what makes them worth having.

Why This Is Not a DIY Decision

I've taken the call from a family who used an online form and thought they were done. The will was technically valid. But it named only one guardian with no backup, had no provision for incapacity, and left beneficiary designations pointing to accounts that no longer existed.

Online platforms have made it easier than ever to generate paperwork. But a form does not know that your state has specific signing and witnessing requirements that affect whether the document is even valid. It does not know that your child has special needs that require a specific kind of trust to protect their benefits. It does not know that the beneficiary designations on your life insurance still point to a parent who passed away years ago.

A Personal Family Lawyer® Firm asks all of those questions and builds a plan around the real answers. The relationship doesn't end when the documents are signed. When something happens, your family knows to call me.

The bottom line: A form gets paperwork done. A Personal Family Lawyer gets your family protected.

What You Can Do Right Now

August is Make-A-Will Month. Use it. But don't stop at a will.

As a Personal Family Lawyer Firm, I help families build a Life & Legacy Plan that goes beyond documents to create real, lasting protection for the people you love most. I take the time to understand your specific family situation and design a plan that actually works when it matters.

Schedule a complimentary 15-minute discovery call and let's find out where your family stands: https://outlook.office.com/book/bookings@succession-plus.com/s/WGz7l2mrQ0ibZJ7joYe5cQ2?ismsaljsauthenabled

This article is a service of Bret Christiansen, a Personal Family Lawyer® Firm. We don’t just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That's why we offer a Life & Legacy Planning® Session, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. You can begin by calling our office today to schedule a Life & Legacy Planning Session.

The content is sourced from Personal Family Lawyer for use by Personal Family Lawyer firms, a source believed to be providing accurate information. This material was created for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as ERISA, tax, legal, or investment advice. If you are seeking legal advice specific to your needs, such advice services must be obtained on your own, separate from this educational material.

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