“Single people sometimes get forgotten,” Jill Frey says when discussing estate planning. “I think a lot of times people think estate planning for single people is easier,” she adds, “but I think that maybe it’s harder. We don’t have a partner or kids to leave things to. We don’t have a partner to help us make decisions.”
Jill, an Agency Field Leader for State Farm Insurance, is a successful professional who didn’t prioritize her own estate planning for years. “I’m in the insurance and financial services industry,” she says, “so I always knew the importance of estate planning. Since many of my assets have beneficiary designations, it was easy to put off the other stuff because I didn’t have any sense of urgency.”
As Jill postponed her own plans, she continued to preach the importance of estate planning to others, especially when they had those “big” life moments that prompted weighty conversations. For partnered and married people, that’s often marriage or the birth of a child. But because Jill didn’t have one of those triggering events that pushes others to make their plans, she continued to procrastinate.
It wasn’t a momentous event that prompted Jill to get started with Schromen Law, however. It was consideration and care for her parents.
“I didn’t want them to be faced with difficult decisions,” she says. Jill didn’t want to put her parents through additional agony by making them responsible for any heart-wrenching choices if anything were to happen to her.
The love of her pet also provided motivation to Jill. “He’s my child,” Jill says of her current dog, Oliver, a beagle.
Estate planning with her current and future pets in mind allowed her to make sure those pets would be cared for if something happened to her. She was able to name the person she wanted to take over care of her pet, and she could ensure her pet’s new caregiver would have all the money they needed to maintain the same level of care that Jill provides for her furry family members.
Once she started the process with Schromen Law, Jill found peace with the process. “What I really loved about working with Rachel was she just asked really good questions,” Jill says. “She didn’t make any assumptions of what may or may not be important to me. If I had questions, she was really good at walking me through the pros and cons to help me solidify my decisions.”
And that same peace follows Jill now after her estate plans are in place.
“I know the people I’ve designated in my estate planning documents will do a phenomenal job, and my family, including my dog, will be taken care of,” Jill shares. “I intend to live to 100, but if that doesn’t happen, everything is in place.”
The material contained herein is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to create or constitute an attorney-client relationship between Schromen Law, LLC and the reader. The information contained herein is not offered as legal advice and should not be construed as legal advice.
Questions?
