When new clients come to our office asking us to prepare wills for them, the vast majority come in already knowing to whom they wish to leave their assets at death (the ones that don't know often procrastinate and, in many cases, leave it to the very end). In the case of a typical married couple, they generally wish to leave their assets to (or for the benefit of) one another and their children and grandchildren. While we help them understand how to best structure the disposition of the assets for their family members and, most often, recommend trust structures, knowing the objects of one's bounty is the most important aspect of the plan. Without that, there can be no estate plan. The one question that a lot of our clients are not expecting toward the end of our estate planning meeting is how they want their assets to pass in the event of a "family catastrophe." As if planning for death isn't difficult enough, there is even more to think about should this unexpected contingency become a reality.

For most of our clients, we recommend including a family catastrophe provision in their wills. This is usually more important for smaller families; whereas, a larger family with several children and multiple grandchildren tend to be safer from this remote event. Before we even make it to the "family catastrophe" portion of the will, we would need to get past the multiple tiers of beneficiaries that we have first built into the plan. In the case of a married couple with children, that means that the spouse, all of the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. (including those descendants alive at the time of the will signing and those born or adopted after) would have to have died. In that event, the estate assets would pass to the beneficiaries named in the family catastrophe clause of the will.