It is not enough just to have an estate plan. You need to make sure that it is actually up to date. This is a constant process. Writing a will and then forgetting about it for 10 years does not help anyone. Your assets could change significantly in that time.
For instance, people now have far more digital assets than they used to control. Some are digital products, like movies and books. Others are digital forms of money, such as bitcoin. Some are just things that, though not really valuable at all, have a sentimental value for your family. Examples could be all of those pictures that you keep online.
Someone who wrote a will in 2005 and then passed away in 2019 may have a lot of digital assets that are unaccounted for in their estate plan.
Another problem is that family members may not even know how to access some of this information. If you don’t write it down, will they have passwords for bank accounts, investments, email accounts, social media accounts, and the like?
Confusion causes a lot of issues when someone passes away. It can make the process drag on for a long time. It can lead to disputes between siblings about what to do with assets. It can lead to extensive litigation. An out-of-date estate plan breeds this type of confusion at every turn.
Maybe you’re already in this position; your parents passed away and you and the other beneficiaries are working out what to do with both physical and digital assets. Be sure you know what legal options you have.