10 Tips: Set up a clear game plan for your loved ones

Have you prepared clear, written instructions about your wishes in the event of your death? These tips can help you get organized as quickly and painlessly as possible:
1 Communicate, communicate, communicate. Try to broach the subject of wills, trusts and potential inheritances with your close family members while all of you are alive and healthy. This can reduce the chances for unpleasant surprises and fights down the road.
2 Keep your insurance policies up to date. Are your premiums paid up for your life, health, disability and long-term-care insurance policies? Also, make sureyour beneficiaries are current.
3 Be clear about your medical care. While you're healthy, spell out your medical wishes in writing in the form of a health care directive. This directive can be a living will, which allows you to prescribe which life-saving medical treatments you want to receive, or it can be a durable power of attorney for health care, which lets you specify your wishes while giving another person the authority to make medical decisions for you.
4 Set up an estate plan. It's important to establish a will or trust to detail how you want your property distributed. If you fail to do so, your property will be distributed according to Florida state law, which may not conform to your wishes.
5 Provide guidance about your assets. Do you have a good sense of when certain assets of yours should be sold? Also, do you feel strongly that certain assets should be kept for at least a certain period of time? You can spell this out in writing or discuss such matters with the people who will be inheriting the assets.
6 Organize key paperwork. To help loved ones or your durable power of attorney find important information, index these documents: birth, death and marriage certificates; a detailed list of bills that must be paid, with due dates; insurance policies; health care directives; location of wills, trusts and power of attorney documents; deeds; detailed funeral and burial wishes; three years of tax returns; important passwords; and the location of keys to your safe deposit box and filing cabinet.
7 Make sure your contacts are easy to contact. To help your loved ones or your durable power of attorney reach key people in your life, prepare an "important contacts directory" that spells out how to reach your lawyer, accountant, other financial professionals and advisers, family members and close friends.
8 Remember your pets. Do you have someone in mind who would do a good job of caring for your pets if you were no longer able to do so? Talk to the person about his or her willingness to adopt your pets. You could make arrangements with reputable no-kill animal shelters or animal rescue organizations. Leave all of these instructions in writing.
9 Share your stories. What would you like your friends and loved ones to know about you? Write down your reflections and personal accounts from your life and feelings for loved ones that may have gone unspoken all these years.
10 Share your filing system. Don't be shy about letting your closest family members and your durable power of attorney know where you've stored the information.