Losing a job is a major life event. With the Big 3 making job cuts and Chrysler announcing today another 1,000 jobs will be lost (read here), it is important to remember that any major life events trigger a need to review your estate plan.
With job loss there can be changes in retirement accounts. Any time there are changes in title to accounts, such as rolling a 401k from an old company into an IRA, there needs to be a review to make sure that with the new account any trusts are properly funded and any beneficiary forms are designating who they should designate. Failure to do so can lead to unintended consequences such as disinherited heirs.
Major life events (job loss, job changes, divorce) can be difficult to deal with, but it’s important to make sure that once the dust settles, everything is still in place the way it should.
Our firm has created a systematized process to review estate plans (called Foundations), similar to how you have dental check ups, to make sure your estate plan still achieves the goals you desired when you originally created it.