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Don’t Let Outdated Beneficiary Forms Give Your Estate a Halloween Jump Scare By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi October 9, 2026 October brings pumpkin spice, crisp autumn air, and National Financial Planning Week. It’s the time of year when financial advisors across the country encourage us to review our investments, double-check our retirement goals, and make sure our hard-earned money is growing. Building wealth is an essential part of financial planning. But as a probate attorney, I see the other side of financial planning—what happens when those investments finally need to be transferred to the next generation.  And if there’s one thing that can deliver an absolute jump scare to your loved ones from beyond the grave, it’s an outdated beneficiary designation form. The Haunted Ghost of Beneficiary Forms Past When you open a 401(k), IRA, brokerage account, or life insurance policy, your financial planner almost always has you fill out a beneficiary designation form. These forms name Pay...

Workin’ 9 to 5: Why Estate Administration Shouldn’t Be a Family Business By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi October 2, 2026 When Dolly Parton sang "9 to 5, what a way to make a livin' / Barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'...", she captured the universal grind of the workplace. But as recent headlines out of Nashville show, when estate administration turns into an unpaid, high-stakes job for family members, that "all takin' and no givin'" feeling can quickly ruin family relationships. Following Parton’s passing, a legal battle erupted between her corporate estate entity (She's Alive, LLC) and a family member who had long served as a key employee and operational manager. What followed was a wave of court filings, temporary restraining orders, and administrative friction that brought key estate work to a crawl. While few families manage a multi-million-dollar music catalog, this dispute highlights a critical lesson for every estat...

Candles, Cake, and Clarity: Why Your Birthday is the Best Date for an Estate Plan Review By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi September 25, 2026 Over the years, Oprah Winfrey gave us countless lessons on how to live intentionally, but one of her most practical pieces of advice centered on self-care: using your birthday as a recurring reminder for critical annual health checks. She championed the idea of scheduling annual mammograms and wellness exams right around your birthday, framing it not as a chore, but as an empowering gift of health to yourself. Yesterday, I celebrated my own birthday—a day full of warm wishes, calls from loved ones, and, of course, cake. And as I reflected on another trip around the sun, Oprah’s ritual came to mind. It turns out that a birthday is not just the perfect trigger for a physical check-up; it is also the ideal annual date for a quick legal health audit. We are already conditioned to handle annual check-ups around recurring milestones: physicals, dental clean...

Lessons from the Sidelines: What Cross Country Teaches Us About Estate Planning By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi September 18, 2026 O'Dark Thirty -- the phrase we parents of High School Cross Country runners refer to when our alarms ring at 5am on a Saturday morning.  From late August through the end of October my weekends kickoff on the sidelines of meets where my teenagers are doing their best to PR (personal record) in a 5K race.  I stand on the sideline with a cowbell in hand (a custom among the Vel Philips Memorial High School Girls XC team) cheering as a sea of runners surges past into the woods. My message from the spectator line is always the same: Dig deep, keep your pace, and do not leave anything on the course. Standing out on those courses week after week offers a great reminder of how long-distance running mirrors life—and specifically, how we care for our legal plans. A common misconception about estate planning is that it’s a 100-meter sprint: you push hard, draft t...

A Clear September Morning: Why We Plan for the Unthinkable By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi September 11, 2026 Every year as September 11th approaches, my mind drifts back to that morning in Madison. It was what locals often call "Chamber of Commerce weather"—a crisp, brilliant blue sky, perfectly calm, the kind of autumn day where everything feels right with the world.  And then, in an instant, tragedy struck.  My grandmother said it shook her the same was as the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  I once called Washington, D.C. home for a three year period of time, and work assignments in the mid-1990s allowed me to spend substantial time in New York City. The news felt painfully close.  I knew people living in those cities, walking those streets, and event working at The Pentagon. September 11th taught all of us a heavy, irreversible truth: life can turn on a dime, without warning or room for preparation. As an estate planning attorney, I talk with clients every day about ...

3 Beneficiary Form Mistakes That Can Sabotage Your Estate Plan By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi September 4, 2026 It's early September -- trees begin to show their colors, kids are back in school, and football is back on TV.  It is also Life Insurance Awareness Month.  From my vantage point as an estate planning and probate attorney I see this as an ideal opportunity to revisit one of the most powerful, yet often misunderstood, tools in personal finance -- the beneficiary form for life insurance.  When people think about estate planning, they usually picture formal documents: a will, a Revocable Living Trust, or Powers of Attorney. But for many individuals and families, a significant portion of their wealth does not pass through a will at all. It passes directly through beneficiary designations on assets, life insurance in particular.  Because life insurance proceeds pass by contract directly to whoever is named on that single piece of paper (known as a beneficiary form)...