The Top Three Legal Documents You Should Have Ready in a Crisis

**Video Transcript**

There’s three legal documents you should have prepared and ready to go in the case of a medical emergency. Those three documents are going to help you and help the people around you to make medical decisions and financial decisions for you, if you become incapacitated.

The first document is a healthcare directive. A healthcare directive is a document where you name an agent to make healthcare decisions for you. You might think that your family member is going to step in and make healthcare decisions, and that can be true, but you might want a particular family member or a friend or somebody that you trust, to make your healthcare decisions. And with the healthcare directive, you can do that.

The second important document is a durable power of attorney. A durable power of attorney allows your agent to make financial decisions for you in the event you become incapacitated.

And the third important legal document is the biggest document of all, and that’s the trust. The great thing about a trust is not only does it allow your successor trustee to manage your finances if you become incapacitated, but it also operates after you pass away so that your estate can be orderly distributed to your named beneficiaries.

Keep in mind, a power of attorney won’t do that. So a power of attorney only works, even a durable power of attorney, while the principal is alive. As soon as somebody passes away, that power of attorney automatically terminates.

That’s not the way it works with trusts. Trusts continue even after the person who created it passes away.

In the event of a future medical emergency, you'll want to consider having these three important legal documents.