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Show Make Plans For Your Estate Many a father today, perhaps without realizing it, is building an estate for his family as he works for a living, as he provides his wife and children with life's necessities, and as he plans for theirsecurity. It is not unusual these days for a man in his forties or even younger, to have an estate worth $10,000 or $20,000 or more, which he acquired through his own efforts. His savings, his life insurance, the value of the home he and his wife purchased, their investments these are elements which, taken together, made up an estate. Comparison with a generation ago shows that, from a financial point of view, family well-being has improved in many respects, including ownership of homes, cars, life insurance and savings. 1. In 1930 only 48 per cent of families owned their own homes. Today 62 per cent of families have homes of their own. 2. Much fewer than half of American families had automobiles in 1930; today more than three out of four families have autos. 3. In 1930 only about 55 per cent of people in the United States had life insurance, where today 65 per cent are insured. The story this tells is that the number of life insurance policyholders has nearly doubled in a single generation, from 68 million persons in 1930 to more than 120 million today. 4. Family savings, as reported by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, has grown nearly sevenfold in the last generation, from about $48 billion to nearly $338 billions. The "average" family of 1930 thus had savings of about $1600, where today's average family has $0300 in savings. Since people are generally better off financially than they were a few years ago, "estate planning," a term that once applied to the wealthy few, is increasingly touching the lives of many American families. Estate planning is simply another way of saying that a man is taking steps to see that his family receives his legacy intact. Bills, debts, final expenses, executor and legal fees and state and federal inheritance taxes can whittle away at an estate, leavig a wife and children with less of an inheritance than a devoted husband and father had anticipated. anti-cipated. Any one of these obligations can shrink an estate, unless, of course, provision is made to meet them. A family today with a home, life insurance and an auto is considered to have an estate of at least $10,000 or higher. This would probably include most families. The need for planning for a $10,000 legacy is shown in a recent analysis of such estates; obligations reached the surprisingly high average of $2380. However, the analysis showed there was only $1100 in cash available in the typical estate, which meant that somehow the family had to obtain another $1200, perhaps by selling part of the inheritance. Analysis of estates of $25,000 and higher showed, as might have been expected, an even greater lack of cash to meet obligaations so that an estate might be settled. Many people, with the assistance of specialists such as a lawyer, a life insurance agent, a banker and an accountant, ac-countant, anticipates the funds needed to settle an estate and frequently use life insurance to provide the cash lmemdiately. In this way a husband and father can make sure that his estate will be passed along to his heirs, just as he had planned. . |