Your parents did the responsible thing. At some point, probably when you were in college or just out of it, they sat down with an attorney, got a will drafted, named some beneficiaries, set up a trust, and checked “estate plan” off the list.
That was 25 years ago. Since then, you got married. Your siblings got married. Kids were born. The family grew into something none of those documents anticipated.
The estate plan has not kept up.
We see this all the time with families in Southern California — not a missing plan, but a plan that is quietly out of date. The documents exist. They just describe an earlier, smaller version of your family.
The Will Isn’t the Whole Picture
Here’s the thing a lot of people don’t know: A will does not govern how all assets are distributed. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and transfer-on-death accounts go straight to the person on the beneficiary designation form. And those forms are generally legally binding even if the will says something different.
If your dad’s 401(k) beneficiary form was filled out at work in 2001 — before your kids were born, before your sibling’s divorce, before a lot of things — that form controls. The carefully updated will your parents had drafted a few years later does not override it.
This is where a lot of the unintended outcomes happen. Not because anyone made a mistake, but because the beneficiary designations were filled out at one moment in time and the family kept moving.
What Happens When Your Kids Aren’t in the Plan
There are two ways your children (your parents’ grandkids) can end up outside an estate plan.
The first is straightforward: The grandchildren simply aren’t named. The plan passes everything to you and your siblings, and it’s left to you to decide how to handle the next generation. That may be exactly what your parents intend. Or it may not reflect their wishes at all. The plan doesn’t know either way.
The second is less obvious, and it has to do with a concept called per stirpes, a legal term worth understanding. A per stirpes designation is an instruction on a beneficiary form that says: If my beneficiary predeceases me, their share passes down to their children instead of being split among the other beneficiaries I designated.
Without it on a beneficiary form, if one of your parents’ named beneficiaries were to pass away before them, that person’s share would typically go to the other beneficiaries. That beneficiary’s children receive nothing from that designation. The per stirpes designation is a checkbox on most beneficiary forms that many people skip without realizing what they are skipping.
Per stirpes doesn’t require updating a plan every time a new grandchild arrives. But it does require someone to have checked that box intentionally, knowing what it means.
The Trust Written for a Different Family
Wills and trusts are where the generational gap tends to show up most clearly, and most quietly.
A trust written 25 years ago may have been thoughtfully drafted for the family as it existed then. Fixed-percentage splits among two adult children. Age-based distribution triggers that made sense when the kids were in their 20s but no longer match the reality of adult children in their 40s and 50s. Provisions written around a family structure that has since changed through marriage, divorce, or death.
None of this means the original plan was wrong. It means it was written for a snapshot of the family as it was then. Outdated estate plans frequently create disputes and unintended outcomes simply because nobody updated the plan when the family changed.
And the plan can work against itself in subtle ways. A trust that leaves assets equally to two adult children and a third who has since passed away may require legal intervention to sort out, unless the plan anticipated that scenario and said what to do.
Are the Right People Still in the Right Roles?
An estate plan names people, not just instructions. The executor of the will. The trustee. The person holding power of attorney. These roles were filled in at a specific moment in time with whoever was available and appropriate then.
That person may have moved across the country. They may have developed their own health challenges. The relationship with your parents may be different now than it was when they were named. The named executor may have passed away, leaving the role to whoever a probate court decides.
A plan with the wrong people in key roles is not much better than a plan without people at all. Those roles deserve the same review as the documents themselves.
How to Bring This Up With Your Parents
A lot of adult children have been meaning to raise this and haven’t found the moment. The topic feels heavy, or they’re not sure how their parents will receive it.
In our experience, the conversation is usually easier than it looks. Most parents who drafted a plan years ago know it’s been a while. They’ve meant to revisit it. They just haven’t had a reason to act.
The framing that tends to land best: “A lot has changed in our family since you last updated this. I just want to make sure it still says what you want it to say.” That’s it. You’re not questioning their choices. You’re asking whether the plan reflects the family they actually have now.
The answer is almost always yes to a review. And once the conversation is open, most parents are genuinely relieved someone brought it up.
Where the Money Side Comes In
Updating an estate plan is legal work and the job of an estate planning attorney. But coordinating the financial picture around that plan is a different conversation and one that is often worth having at the same time.
Which accounts have beneficiary designations that need reviewing? How does the overall estate pass, and in what form, to the next generation? Is the portfolio structured in a way that makes sense given how it will eventually be distributed? Are there gifting strategies your parents should be thinking about now rather than leaving for later?
These are the questions we help families work through. If your parents are in the Claremont area or anywhere across Southern California and it has been a while since their financial plan was looked at, they can schedule a time and bring you along. We’re glad to sit down with the whole family.
Starting this conversation can feel like a big step, but you don’t need to have all the answers to take it. You’ve got this. And we’re right here if you want help.
If your parents would like to talk it through, have them grab a time at evermont.com or call us at 909-296-7977.
Keep building your future — and theirs.
This material was written in collaboration with artificial intelligence (Claude) derived from sources believed to be accurate. This information should not be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.