By Caleb Lihn
National Estate Planning Awareness Week runs October 19–25, 2026. It’s a good yearly nudge to look over one of the most important plans you’ll ever make: your estate plan.
If you’ve signed a will, you probably felt a real sense of accomplishment, and rightly so. A will matters. But having a will and having an estate plan where every piece works together aren’t always the same thing.
A good estate plan covers what happens to your property after you die. It should also cover who can step in for you while you’re alive if you can’t make your own financial or health care decisions. Depending on your situation, that plan might include a will, a revocable living trust, financial and health care powers of attorney, a mental health care power of attorney, a living will, beneficiary designations, and careful coordination of how your assets are titled.
This week is a good time to check how those pieces fit together, and whether your plan still matches your life today.
Do All the Pieces Agree?
Here’s something that surprises a lot of people: your will may not control every asset you own.
Many retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and bank and investment accounts let you name a beneficiary. That designation may decide who receives the account, no matter what your will says. Assets you own jointly, or that are titled in a trust, may also pass outside your will.
Say your will divides your estate equally among your three children. But years ago you named just one of them as the beneficiary on a particular account and never updated it. Because of that designation, the account may go straight to that one child instead of being divided under your will.
That isn’t necessarily a mistake. Maybe it’s exactly what you wanted. But if it isn’t, it shows why the pieces of a plan need to line up. Your documents, beneficiary designations, account ownership, and any trust should all be telling the same story.
What a Will Does (and Doesn’t Do)
A will gives instructions for property that passes through your estate, names the person you want to handle that estate, and can nominate a guardian for minor children.
Having a will doesn’t, by itself, keep your estate out of probate. In fact, in many cases probate is the legal process used to carry out a will’s instructions and give the person handling the estate the authority to access and manage estate assets.
Probate has a reputation as something to avoid at all costs. But in Arizona, many estates can be handled through a streamlined process, especially when nobody is disputing anything. Whether avoiding probate should be a main goal for you depends on your assets, your family, how much privacy matters to you, and your other priorities.
When a Living Trust Might Make Sense
A revocable living trust is another common tool. While you’re alive, you generally keep control of the trust’s assets and can change or revoke the trust. If you become unable to manage your affairs, a successor trustee can step in to manage the assets that have been properly placed in the trust. After your death, those assets can generally be managed and distributed without going through probate.
For a lot of families, that continuity is one of the most useful things about a trust. A trust can also offer more privacy than probate, make things easier if you own property in more than one state, and let assets stay in trust for your beneficiaries instead of going to them outright.
That last point matters more than people realize. A well-designed trust can include ongoing provisions meant to protect an inheritance for a beneficiary who has a disability, is financially vulnerable, or could use extra protection from creditors or divorce. One important caveat: those protections are for the people receiving the inheritance. A standard revocable living trust generally won’t protect you, the person who created it, from your own creditors during your lifetime.
That said, a trust isn’t automatically better than a will, and not everyone needs one. It typically takes more work and expense up front, and signing the document is only the beginning. Your assets then have to be properly titled, transferred, or otherwise coordinated with the trust (this is called “funding” the trust). A beautifully drafted trust that’s never funded may not avoid probate or do the other things you set it up to do.
The better question isn’t just, “Do I need a trust?” It’s, “What kind of plan best fits my family, my assets, and what I want it to accomplish?”
Planning for Incapacity Counts, Too
Estate planning isn’t only about what happens after you’re gone. If an illness, injury, or cognitive decline leaves you unable to make or communicate decisions, the documents you sign now can determine who has authority to act for you and can spare your family a lot of uncertainty.
In Arizona, a complete plan usually includes several separate documents for this:
- A financial power of attorney lets someone you trust handle financial and legal matters for you.
- A health care power of attorney names who can make medical decisions if you can’t.
- A mental health care power of attorney covers decisions about mental health treatment.
- A living will lays out your wishes for end-of-life care.
Each one does a different job, but they share the same goal: giving the people you trust the authority and guidance they may need at a difficult time. For many families, this part of the plan matters every bit as much as deciding who gets what.
Choosing the Right People
It’s natural to spend a lot of time thinking about who will receive your property. It’s worth spending just as much time on who will be in charge of carrying out your plan.
Depending on your plan, you may be choosing a personal representative (Arizona’s term for an executor) under your will, a successor trustee, an agent under your financial power of attorney, and agents for health care and mental health care decisions. These roles call for different strengths, and they don’t all have to go to the same person.
Try to think beyond tradition. The best choice isn’t automatically your oldest child or whoever lives closest. Look for someone who is organized and dependable, communicates well, understands your values, and can make thoughtful decisions during what may be an emotional time for your family.
Build Flexibility Into Your Plan
Life rarely goes exactly as planned. Kids grow up, families change, people move, and finances shift. The people you picked for important roles years ago may no longer be the best choices today.
A good plan expects some of that change. Your documents can name backups in case your first choice can’t serve, say what should happen if a beneficiary dies before you, and add appropriate protections when an inheritance shouldn’t be distributed outright.
No plan can predict everything. The idea is to build in enough flexibility that your plan can still do what you intended when life changes.
Your Plan Should Grow With You
An estate plan isn’t something you finish once and never think about again. Every few years, and after any big life change, take a fresh look.
Ask yourself:
- Are these still the people I want making financial and health care decisions for me?
- Are my beneficiary designations up to date?
- If I have a trust, are my assets still coordinated with it?
- Have there been changes in my family, finances, health, or goals?
- Does this plan still reflect what matters to me today?
Sometimes the answer is that nothing needs to change, and that’s perfectly fine. The value of the review is knowing that the plan you made years ago still fits the life you’re living now.
In the End, It’s About Clarity
Estate planning involves legal documents, but its real purpose is much more personal.
At some point, the people you love may be asked to carry out the decisions you’re making today. They may be doing it while you’re ill, while they’re grieving, or while juggling everything else in their lives.
A good plan gives them something incredibly valuable: clarity. They don’t have to guess what you wanted or wonder whom you trusted to make decisions. They have a roadmap.
You don’t need a large estate or a complicated family for any of this to matter, and your plan doesn’t need to be complex just for the sake of it. A will may be exactly right for one family; a revocable trust may make more sense for another. Powers of attorney and health care directives cover a different risk entirely: what happens if you’re alive but can’t act for yourself.
The goal isn’t to collect documents. It’s to have a plan where the pieces work together and reflect your wishes, your family, and your life. Done well, it can be one final gift to the people you love: clarity when they need it most.
Take the Next Step
Whether you’re reviewing an existing plan or just getting started, this is also a good time to think about the legacy you want to leave. Sun Health Foundation can help you explore charitable giving options that fit into your broader estate and legacy plan. The Foundation also keeps a vetted network of professional advisors and offers referrals and educational resources for anyone looking for guidance. To request a free estate planning kit or talk with a member of the philanthropy team, call (623) 471-8470 and learn how your legacy can support the health and well-being of future generations.
Caleb Lihn is a Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA) and owner of Lihn Law Group, PLLC. His practice focuses on elder law, estate planning, disability and special needs planning, and probate. He is a member of Sun Health Foundation’s Council of Professional Advisors.
