You did it.
Maybe Make-A-Will Month finally moved it to the top of your list. Maybe you’ve been meaning to get this done for years, and this was the month it finally happened. Either way, you sat down, signed the documents, and walked away with something many families never get around to doing.
That matters. I mean it.
But here’s what I tell every client who comes to me after making a will somewhere else: Most families think the job is done. They sign the documents, file them away, and assume they’re covered.
Then something happens, and they discover just how much the will didn’t do.
If you made a will, this is your checklist for what comes next, including what a will does not cover and the gaps that could still leave your family and assets unprotected.
First, Understand What Your Will Actually Does
A will is a legal document that provides instructions for how certain assets should be handled after you die. That’s an important job, but it has limits.
A will does not necessarily keep your family out of court. Assets controlled by a will generally pass through probate, a court-supervised process that can take time, involve legal and administrative expenses, and delay access to certain assets.
A will also only controls what is actually addressed by the document and applicable law, not conversations you may have had with family members. If you told someone you were leaving them your car but your estate planning documents say otherwise, your verbal promise may not determine who receives it. Disputes over a will can add cost, delay, and family conflict to an already difficult time.
A will also does not control assets that pass through beneficiary designations or other non-probate arrangements. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and certain bank or investment accounts may pass directly to the beneficiary named on the account, regardless of what your will says.
And a will does nothing if you’re incapacitated rather than deceased. If you’re in an accident or become seriously ill and can’t make decisions for yourself, your will doesn’t suddenly activate. Without the proper incapacity documents in place, your family may have limited legal authority to manage your finances or make medical decisions on your behalf.
A will is an important part of an estate plan. But it is only one part.
Here’s what you should look at next.
Step 1: A Will Does Not Override Beneficiary Designations
Most people don’t realize this when they sign their will: There may be an entirely separate set of documents controlling who receives a significant portion of their assets.
Those documents are your beneficiary designation forms, and they generally operate outside your will.
Here is the part that matters: When an asset has a valid beneficiary designation, that designation generally determines who receives the asset, even if your will says something different.
What do I see most often?
A former spouse still named on a retirement account. A parent who has since passed away. A child named directly as a beneficiary without considering how those assets will be managed if the child is still a minor.
These are easy details to overlook because beneficiary forms tend to disappear into the background of our financial lives. You fill one out when you start a new job, open an account, or buy a life insurance policy and then may not think about it again for years.
Meanwhile, your life keeps changing.
Every retirement account, life insurance policy, and account with a beneficiary or transfer-on-death designation should be reviewed. Each should reflect your family and your wishes as they exist today, not as they were the first week of your first job.
Reviewing beneficiary designations is one of the first things I walk through with families during a Life & Legacy Planning® Session because it is one of the most common places where an otherwise thoughtful estate plan can develop gaps.
Step 2: Your Trust May Not Work If It Isn’t Funded
If you received a trust along with your will, I want you to ask one specific question:
Are my assets actually in the trust?
A trust generally controls the assets that have been properly transferred to it or otherwise coordinated with it. Signing a trust document creates the legal structure. Transferring assets into that structure, commonly called funding the trust, is a separate and critical step.
If your house, bank accounts, or investment accounts were supposed to be owned by your trust but remain titled in your individual name, those assets may still be subject to probate or otherwise fail to pass according to the trust as intended.
In my experience, unfunded or improperly funded trusts are one of the most common estate planning problems I encounter.
Families pay for a trust, assume their estate is protected, and later discover that the assets were never properly transferred.
The trust document is sitting safely in a folder.
The assets never made it inside.
If you don’t know whether your trust is funded, find out. If it isn’t, completing the funding process should be a priority.
A trust is only as effective as the planning behind it. Signing the document is the beginning, not the end.
Step 3: A Will Does Not Plan for Incapacity
One of the biggest things a will does not cover is what happens while you are still alive.
A will takes effect at death. The rest of your life, including any period when you are alive but unable to make decisions for yourself, requires separate planning.
For Texas families, a comprehensive estate plan may include documents such as a durable power of attorney, medical power of attorney, directive to physicians, and appropriate HIPAA authorization.
A durable power of attorney allows someone you trust to handle certain financial matters on your behalf. A medical power of attorney allows you to designate someone to make healthcare decisions if you cannot make those decisions yourself. A directive to physicians allows you to communicate your wishes regarding certain medical treatment.
I also make sure clients have the appropriate HIPAA authorization in place so the people they designate can receive protected health information from medical providers when needed. Without proper authorization, even close family members may encounter obstacles when trying to obtain information about your care.
Think about the difference.
Your will answers questions about what happens after you die.
Your incapacity documents answer questions about who can step in and help you while you are still here.
If you made a will and nothing else, you addressed an important piece of your estate plan. But you may not have addressed what happens if you’re alive and unable to manage your own affairs.
Those documents deserve just as much attention as your will.
Step 4: Your Estate Plan Needs to Change When Your Life Changes
Your life will change. Your estate plan needs to change with it.
When I work with clients in a Life & Legacy Planning® relationship, we review the plan at least every three years. We revisit beneficiary designations, check whether new accounts or property have been properly coordinated with the trust, confirm that the guardians named for minor children still make sense, review the agents named in incapacity documents, and make sure the plan as a whole continues to reflect the client’s current circumstances and wishes.
This matters because the gaps that hurt families most aren’t always the result of bad planning at the start.
Sometimes they’re the result of good planning that was never updated.
A divorce. A marriage. A new baby. A move to another state. A significant change in assets. The death of a beneficiary or someone you named to serve in an important role.
Any of these can quietly create a gap in an estate plan that looked complete when it was signed.
A Personal Family Lawyer® firm stays connected with your family over time. Estate planning shouldn’t be a one-time transaction where you sign a stack of papers, put them on a shelf, and hope everything still works 20 years from now.
It should be an ongoing relationship designed to keep your plan working as your life changes.
Why a Will Alone Isn’t a Complete Estate Plan
If you made your will through an online platform, or through an attorney who handed you documents and moved on, I am genuinely glad you did it.
Taking action is better than continuing to put it off.
But creating the document is only part of the job.
Were your beneficiary designations reviewed?
If you created a trust, was it properly funded?
Did you address what happens if you become incapacitated?
Do you understand whom you named to serve in each role, what authority you gave them, and what those responsibilities could actually look like years from now?
That last part matters more than most people realize.
An AI can give you a definition of a successor trustee. A lawyer can help you think through what happens when little Johnny turns 21 and asks the trustee for $500,000 to buy a Lamborghini.
That’s the job.
And who you name for it matters enormously.
I’ve seen clients name aging parents as successor trustees for very young children without considering whether those parents are likely to be able to manage a trust decades into the future.
Choosing healthcare agents requires the same kind of careful thought. The person you name may one day be asked to make extraordinarily difficult decisions on your behalf. You want to choose someone who understands your wishes and is capable of carrying them out when the time comes.
Online estate planning tools can be useful for creating documents. What they may not provide is the conversation that helps you think through who belongs in those documents, what authority you’re giving them, and whether all the pieces of your estate plan actually work together.
When I sit down with a client for a Life & Legacy Planning® Session, I’m looking at the full picture: what you own, who you want to protect, what circumstances your family could face, and what documents and structures are appropriate to address those circumstances.
The goal isn’t a folder of signed papers.
It’s a plan designed to function the way you intended when your family needs it most.
You Made a Will. Now Take the Next Step.
If you made a will recently, you did something real and important.
Now take the next step.
As your Personal Family Lawyer®, I offer a Life & Legacy Planning® Session where we look at what you already have in place, identify potential gaps, and determine what still needs attention.
Most families leave that session more financially organized than they’ve ever been, with a clearer picture of what they own, what their current estate plan actually does, and what needs to happen next.
Because estate planning isn’t really about whether you have a will.
It’s about whether the plan you have will actually work when the people you love need it.
For more on Texas estate planning, and to learn about estate planning lawyer Tom Misteli and The Misteli Law Firm, visit www.mistelilaw.com.
