Will, Living Will & Power of Attorney

The four documents every adult needs.

You don’t need to be wealthy, retired, or facing a health scare to need an estate plan. You need to be an adult with assets, dependents, or an opinion about who should speak for you if you can’t. Most people have all three.

Four documents do the heavy lifting. An estate attorney drafts them. At BRIA Capital Group, we make sure the rest of your financial picture lines up so the documents actually work.

What each document does

• Last Will and Testament. Directs who inherits assets that pass through probate, names guardians for minor children, and appoints an executor to handle the estate.
• Living Will (Advance Directive). Spells out your wishes for end-of-life medical care when you can no longer speak for yourself.
• Durable Power of Attorney (financial). Authorizes a trusted person to handle financial matters, pay bills, manage accounts, file taxes, if you become incapacitated.
• Health Care Surrogate (medical POA). Authorizes someone to make medical decisions on your behalf when you can’t.

Florida recognizes both immediate and springing powers of attorney. Each has tradeoffs your attorney can walk through. The right choice depends on who you’d trust today versus only in a real emergency.

What a will does NOT control

This is the part most people miss. A will only controls assets that pass through probate. Many of your most valuable accounts bypass the will entirely.

• Retirement accounts (401(k), IRA, Roth IRA) pass to whoever is named on the beneficiary form.
• Life insurance pays to the named beneficiary, regardless of what the will says.
• Annuities pass by beneficiary designation.
• Jointly titled property (real estate, bank accounts with rights of survivorship) passes automatically to the surviving owner.
• Payable-on-death (POD) or transfer-on-death (TOD) accounts pass to the listed recipient outside of probate.

If your will leaves “everything equally to my three children” but your 401(k) still lists your ex-spouse as beneficiary, the 401(k) goes to the ex-spouse. The will is irrelevant. This single mismatch is the most common, and most expensive, failure point we see.

Where the advisor coordinates

Our job is to make sure the financial accounts agree with what the documents say.

• Review every beneficiary form on every retirement account, IRA, and insurance policy.
• Check that account titling (individual, joint, trust) supports the plan rather than working against it.
• Make sure named agents and executors know they’ve been named and can locate the documents and account information.
• Coordinate with the attorney when a trust needs to be funded, that is, when accounts need to actually be retitled into the trust.

A trust that’s never funded is just a paper document. A will with mismatched beneficiaries gives heirs a fight they shouldn’t have to have.

Common pitfalls

• Outdated beneficiary forms. Ex-spouses, deceased relatives, or “my estate” listed by default.
• No successor agent. The primary POA can’t serve and there’s no backup, leaving the family with no one authorized.
• Minor children named as life insurance beneficiaries. A six-figure death benefit paid outright to a minor creates legal complications. A trust designed to hold inheritances for minors is usually the cleaner solution.
• Documents drafted years ago in another state. Florida residency matters. Out-of-state documents may still be valid, but they often miss Florida-specific provisions like homestead and health care surrogate language.
• Documents nobody can find. A safe deposit box that requires court access to open in an emergency defeats the purpose.

How to start

1. Get the four core documents drafted (or refreshed) with an estate attorney licensed in Florida.
2. Bring us the signed documents. We’ll review every beneficiary form and account title and flag mismatches.
3. Update what doesn’t match.
4. Give the named agents the information they’d actually need: where the documents live, the advisor’s contact info, account institutions, and the attorney’s name.

The goal is simple: when the documents are needed, they work without surprise.