Retirement & Income

By the Retiree Report Editorial Team · Updated 2026-05-29 · 7 min read

This article is general information, not financial, tax, or legal advice. Consult a licensed professional before acting on it.

Five estate planning documents every American 65+ should have on file (and one most people skip)

Most of estate planning isn’t about taxes. It’s about who steps in when you can’t speak for yourself, and who avoids a courthouse to do it. There are five documents that handle almost all of it, plus one short form most families never hear about until it’s too late. Only about 32% of American adults had a will in 2024, according to Caring.com’s annual survey — and the figure has been slipping, not climbing.

Why the paperwork matters more than the estate tax

Here’s the part that surprises people: the federal estate tax almost certainly doesn’t apply to you. The basic exclusion amount is $13.99 million per person in 2025, rising to $15 million in 2026 after the 2025 tax law set that level permanently and indexed it for inflation, as the IRS confirms. A married couple can shield up to $30 million. Fewer than one estate in a thousand owes a dime of federal estate tax.

So why bother? Because the real risks are different ones. If you become incapacitated without the right documents, your family may have to ask a court to appoint a guardian — slow, public, and expensive. If you die without a will, your state’s intestacy law decides who gets what, and it may not match your wishes at all. Those are the outcomes the five documents below are built to prevent.

The good news is that none of this requires a fortune to set up. It requires a few signatures, the right witnesses, and a place where your family can actually find the paperwork.

The five documents to get on file

You don’t need anything exotic. For most people over 65, these five cover the ground:

• A last will and testament — names who inherits your property and who serves as executor. The National Institute on Aging treats it as the foundation of getting your affairs in order. Some people add a revocable living trust to keep assets out of probate, but a trust is an addition to a will, not a replacement for one.
• A durable power of attorney for finances — names an agent to pay bills, manage accounts, and handle property if you can’t. “Durable” is the key word: it stays in effect after you lose capacity, which is exactly when you need it.
• A durable power of attorney for health care (also called a health care proxy) — names someone to make medical decisions when you cannot speak for yourself.
• A living will, or advance directive — spells out the care you do and don’t want, such as ventilators or feeding tubes, so your proxy and doctors aren’t guessing.
• Up-to-date beneficiary designations — the forms on your retirement accounts and life insurance that name who inherits those specific assets.

Notice that the two powers of attorney do different jobs. One handles your money; the other handles your body. They can name the same person or two different people, but you need both — a financial agent has no authority over medical choices, and vice versa. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which publishes free Managing Someone Else’s Money guides for the people you appoint, reminds those agents of a simple duty: act in your best interest, keep your money separate from theirs, and keep good records.

Who should you name? Someone organized, trustworthy, and willing — and ideally a backup, in case your first choice can’t serve.

What’s the difference between a living will and a POLST?

This is the document most people skip, mostly because they’ve never heard of it. A POLST — Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment — is the sixth piece, and it’s not a do-it-yourself form. It’s a set of actual medical orders, signed by you and your doctor, that emergency personnel are required to follow.

A living will is a statement of your wishes. A POLST turns those wishes into orders that an EMT or ER team can act on immediately, without tracking down your proxy at 2 a.m. The NIA is clear that a POLST complements an advance directive but does not replace it. You keep both.

The catch is that a POLST isn’t meant for everyone. It’s designed for people who are seriously ill or frail — the point at which “what would I want?” becomes a question paramedics might face this year, not someday. If you’re healthy and active at 65, your advance directive is enough for now. If you’ve got an advanced illness or you’ve been in and out of the hospital, ask your doctor whether a POLST belongs in your file. It’s the document families wish they’d known about.

The form that quietly overrides your will

Of all five, the one people get wrong most often is the simplest: beneficiary designations. The money in a 401(k), IRA, or life insurance policy passes directly to whoever is named on the account — and that name beats your will, every time. As the CFPB puts it, accounts with named beneficiaries are not controlled by your will at all.

That sounds harmless until you picture the common outcome. A man divorces, remarries, updates his will to leave everything to his current wife — and forgets the 401(k) still lists his ex from 1994. The ex inherits, full stop. No judge can override a valid beneficiary form.

So pull up every retirement account, annuity, and life insurance policy and check who’s listed, including the contingent (backup) beneficiary. Do it after any marriage, divorce, birth, or death in the family. These same designations also shape how heirs are taxed when they inherit — the inherited-account rules changed under the SECURE Act, which we cover in our guide to RMD rules in 2026. Five minutes of checking can save your family a fight that no other document can fix.

What to do next

Start with the two you’ll likely need first: the durable financial power of attorney and the health care proxy. Incapacity, not death, is the event most retirees face first, and these are the documents that planning for long-term care leans on. Many states offer free or low-cost advance directive and POLST forms through their health department, and your local Area Agency on Aging can point you to them; a few hundred dollars with an estate attorney covers a will and powers of attorney for most uncomplicated situations.

Then do the unglamorous part: tell people where everything lives. A perfect set of documents in a locked safe-deposit box that no one can open helps no one. Give copies of your health care proxy to your doctor and your named agent, and tell your executor where the originals are kept.

What to remember

The federal estate tax won’t touch the vast majority of families, so don’t let it distract you — the documents that matter most are the ones that decide who acts when you can’t. Get the five basics on file: a will, two durable powers of attorney, a living will, and current beneficiary designations. If you’re seriously ill, ask your doctor about adding a POLST. None of this is legal or medical advice for your specific situation; an estate attorney or your physician can tailor it to your state and your health. The hardest step is starting, and you just did.