Current Trends - Natural Disasters & Your Estate Plan: Are You Prepared - Episode 268

Hey there, Legal Tea Listeners – This is your host, Jenny Rozelle. Welcome back for another episode. Episode 268 – today is a “current trends” topic where we talk about things going on currently that are relevant and pertinent to my estate and elder law world, and/or maybe things I’ve seen on the news or stumbled across on social media. Well today is about … you know, I feel like you don't have to look very far these days to find a story about a natural disaster. We've watched wildfires tear through communities in the West, with people sometimes having just minutes to get out of their homes. We've seen devastating flooding, severe storms, and tornadoes hit communities across the country, including places where people do not necessarily expect that kind of weather. We've seen hurricanes and tropical storms threatening coastal communities, and we've watched people evacuate their homes, sometimes with almost no warning.

And here in Indiana, where I am, we've had our own very real reminder of just how quickly things can change. Recently, we had severe storms, tornadoes, incredibly heavy rain, flooding, widespread power outages, evacuations, and significant property damage. The kind of situation where people wake up thinking it's going to be a completely normal day and, by the end of it, their home or their community looks completely different. And as I've been watching all of this happen, I started thinking about something that doesn't get talked about very much when we talk about disaster preparedness: estate planning.

Because here's something I want you to think about. What happens to your estate planning documents if your house burns down? What happens if your home floods? What happens if a tornado comes through and destroys the room where you've kept your important paperwork for the last 20 years? What happens if you're evacuated and you cannot get back into your home? And maybe even more importantly: What happens if you are not the one who needs those documents? What happens if your spouse, your children, or the person you've named as your power of attorney needs them, and they're sitting inside a house that no longer exists? That's what we're going to talk about today.

Because when most people think about protecting their estate planning documents, often they think about putting them in a safe or a safe-deposit box – and they sort of call it a day. But I want you to think about something a little bigger today. I want you to think about whether your estate plan is actually disaster-proof. And I don't mean that in the sense that the legal documents themselves are somehow indestructible. Obviously, paper burns. Paper gets wet. Paper gets lost. I'm talking about whether your plan can survive a disaster. Because if your home disappeared tomorrow, could your family still find your will? Could they find your trust? Could they find your power of attorney? Would they know who your attorney is? Would they know where to look for your important financial and insurance information? Would they know what to do next? Those are questions I think every person with an estate plan should be asking.

And honestly, you don't have to live in a hurricane zone or a wildfire zone or a floodplain for this to matter. We tend to think, "That won't happen here." Until it does. And that's really the lesson of all of these recent disasters we've been watching across the country. We don't get to choose the disasters we're prepared for. So today, we're going to talk about where you should keep your estate planning documents, whether you should have copies, whether a copy is enough if the original is destroyed, whether your attorney having a copy is enough, what you should do with digital copies, and, perhaps most importantly, how to make sure the people who are supposed to step in for you can actually find your plan when they need it. Because having an estate plan is one thing. Making sure your family can actually access and use it when something goes wrong is another.

So, I think the first thing we need to understand is that your estate plan isn't really the piece of paper. The will is a document. The trust is a document. Your power of attorney is a document. Your health care documents are documents. But the plan is bigger than the paper. The documents are the legal mechanism that puts the plan into effect. And that's why accessibility matters so much. Let's say you have spent a lot of time and money putting together a really thoughtful estate plan. You've named the right people. You've done everything you're supposed to do. And then a tornado comes through and destroys your house. Or your house burns. Or a flood puts four feet of water into your basement where your filing cabinet happens to be. Suddenly, the question isn't whether you had an estate plan. The question is: Can anybody find it? And, of course, that's a very different question.

And I think that's something everybody should think about, even if you live somewhere that you don't think is particularly prone to natural disasters. Because here's the thing about natural disasters: they don't particularly care whether you think your community is prone to them. People in places that don't normally experience tornadoes can get tornadoes. People who have never flooded can flood. People who have never had to evacuate can suddenly be told to leave their homes. And when that happens, you don't have time to go around your house collecting your important paperwork.

So let's start with the obvious question: Where are your original estate planning documents right now? Seriously. If you're listening to this episode, I want you to actually think about it. If the answer is, "They're somewhere in my house," that's not necessarily bad. But I want you to go one step further. Where in your house? Are they in a filing cabinet? A desk? A closet? A basement? A safe? A box? And then ask yourself: What would happen to those documents if my house flooded? What if there was a fire? What if a tornado ripped the roof off the house and everything inside was damaged? What if you had to evacuate in the middle of the night? That's the exercise I want people to do. Not because I want everybody to become paranoid about disasters, but because estate planning is about preparing for things that we hope never happen. That's exactly the point.

When it comes to storing your estate planning documents, I want you to think about three words: Safe. Protected. Accessible. And those aren't the same thing. You want your documents to be physically protected from things like fire and water. But you also want them protected from being lost, accidentally discarded, or destroyed. And then you want them to be accessible to the people who actually need them. Because you can have the safest document in the world sitting inside a safe that nobody else knows exists, and you've still created a problem. I've had people tell me, "Oh, don't worry. Everything is in my safe." Okay. That's great. Who knows about the safe? Who knows where it is? Who knows how to get into it? Those are the questions I want you thinking about.

Now, you may be thinking… “Well, what about a bank safe deposit box?” Sure, a safe deposit box can be another option, but it comes with its own considerations. On the surface, it sounds perfect. It's secure. It's outside your house. It's protected from a lot of the risks that could destroy documents at home. But there's another word we have to think about: access. If your original documents are in a safe deposit box and you die, your family may have to go through certain procedures to get access to that box. And for that reason, I’m typically not a big fan of using them to store estate documents.

Which then you may think, “But my attorney has a copy of the documents!” Okay. This is where we get into a really important distinction. Let's say your house is destroyed. But your estate planning attorney has a copy of your documents. Are you okay? Maybe. And that's an important "maybe." Copies are incredibly valuable. But a copy isn't necessarily the same thing as an original. This is particularly important when we're talking about a will. If the original will is missing or destroyed, that can raise questions about what happened to it. Was it accidentally destroyed? Or did the person who made the will intentionally destroy it because they changed their mind? Those are very different situations. So if you have a copy of your will but the original is gone, don't panic. But don't just assume the copy automatically solves everything, either. Talk to an estate attorney. There are legal procedures for dealing with lost or destroyed estate planning documents, and the facts surrounding the loss can matter. But this is why I don't want anybody listening to this episode to think, "Oh, I've got a PDF on my computer, so I'm covered." A digital copy is fantastic. But it may not replace the original.

Now, having said that, I want to make one thing very clear: consider making a digital copy of your documents. I think this is one of the easiest things you can do to make your estate plan more resilient. And I use the word resilient intentionally. Because your estate plan should be able to survive something happening to your house. If your only copy of everything is sitting in your home office, your plan is vulnerable to whatever happens to that home office. But if you have secure digital copies stored somewhere outside your home, you've created another layer. And that digital copy may not be the legal original, but it can be enormously useful. It can help your family figure out where to go, even if the physical documents themselves are temporarily unavailable. And, obviously, be smart about how you store those digital documents. We're talking about highly personal information, so don't just upload everything to some random website or leave it sitting unprotected on a shared computer. Use secure storage and think about who actually needs access.

Something else… I think there's another layer here that gets overlooked. Natural disasters don't just destroy houses. They can disrupt everything. Banks may close. Roads may be impassable. Power may be out. Insurance claims have to be filed. Property has to be documented. Businesses may be disrupted. And in the middle of all of that chaos, your family may need access to your estate planning documents.

So the goal isn't simply, "Where did I put my estate documents?” The goal is to have a disaster-resistant estate plan. And that means thinking beyond the documents themselves. Who knows where they are? Who knows who your attorney is? Who knows where your financial information is? You don't need to hand every person in your life a complete inventory of your finances, but the people who are going to step in for you need enough information to know where to start.

So let me make this really practical. Here's your little Legal Tea homework assignment! Number one: Find your original estate documents. If you can't find them, that's your first problem to solve. Number two: Figure out whether they're protected from fire and water. If they're sitting somewhere vulnerable, move them – consider investing in a high quality waterproof, fireproof safe. Number three: Create secure digital copies. And make sure those copies are stored somewhere outside your home. Number four: Tell the appropriate people where everything is. You don't have to tell everybody. But the people who may need to act for you should know where to look. Number five: Make sure those same people know who your estate planning attorney is. That can be incredibly helpful if your physical documents are lost.

So, the bigger lesson? Well, I think that's ultimately what these recent disasters have reminded me. We can't control whether a flood comes through our community. We can't control whether a tornado hits our neighborhood. We can't control whether a wildfire threatens our home. We can't control whether a hurricane forces us to evacuate. We can't control a lot of the things that happen around us. But we can control how prepared we are. And estate planning is part of that preparation.

Alrighty guys, it is time to wrap this episode up! Next week, we’re back to the “celebrity estate planning” type of episode – and on next week’s episode, we are going to dive into the estate of long-time actress, Diane Keaton, after her death just least year in 2025. So yeah, next week is on her – Diane Keaton, so until then, Legal Tea Listeners, be well and talk soon!

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