Part 2 of 2: Digital Assets, Medicaid, Retirement Accounts, and Your Legacy
In Part 1, we covered what wills and trusts actually do, why the difference between them matters, and why estate planning isn’t just about death — it’s about protecting yourself and the people you trust while you’re still alive.
Today we’re going deeper. Because even clients who understand the basics are often surprised by these four areas where the absence of a plan — or a plan that didn’tanticipate these issues — can create real problems.
Your Digital Life Is Part of Your Estate
Think about everything you have online: photos stored in the cloud, email accounts, social media profiles, online banking, payment platforms like Venmo or PayPal, and any subscriptions or accounts that hold financial value. For some clients, that list also includes cryptocurrency or accounts tied to online businesses.
Without explicit instructions and access documentation, your loved ones may be permanently locked out of accounts that hold genuine financial value or irreplaceable memories. Many platforms have strict policies that prevent family members from accessing accounts — even accounts tied to your money — without proper legal authority on file.
A comprehensive estate plan addresses your digital life as directly as it addresses your physical assets. That means identifying what you have, documenting access information in a secure way, and making sure the right person has both the knowledge and the legal authority to act. For single adults who manage everything independently, this is especially important — there’s no spouse who already knows where things are.
Medicaid Recovery Is a Real Risk — and a Planable One
Long-term care is expensive. Nursing home costs in Florida can run several thousand dollars per month, and Medicaid — the government program that helps cover those costs for eligible individuals — comes with a condition that many people don’t know about until it’s too late.
Florida’s Medicaid Estate Recovery Program allows the state to recoup money spent on your care from certain assets you own at the time of your death. In some circumstances, that can include your home. Without planning, assets you intended to leave to the people you care about may instead be used to satisfy a Medicaid claim against your estate.
This isn’t inevitable. There are legitimate planning strategies — including certain trust structures and asset arrangements — that can limit or prevent Medicaid recovery. But these strategies need to be in place before a crisis, not after. The time to think about this is now, while your options are still open.
Retirement Accounts Deserve Their Own Strategy
Many people assume that naming a beneficiary on a retirement account is enough. And it’s true that beneficiary designations control how these assets transfer — they pass outside of your will or trust entirely. But the tax consequences of how a beneficiary receives those funds can be significant, and they’re often underestimated.
When a beneficiary inherits a retirement account and takes the funds as a lump sum, the entire amount may be treated as ordinary income in the year they receive it. Depending on the size of the account and the beneficiary’s own financial situation, the tax bill can be substantial — quietly reducing what you intended to leave them.
There are strategies that can help: standalone retirement trusts designed to manage distributions over time, structured withdrawal plans that spread the tax burden, and careful beneficiary designation reviews that account for your beneficiaries’ specific circumstances. If retirement accounts make up a meaningful portion of what you own, they deserve deliberate attention in your plan — not just a beneficiary form filled out years ago.
Your Plan Should Reflect Your Values, Not Just Your Balance Sheet
This is the part of estate planning that surprises people the most — and often becomes the most meaningful.
A will or trust isn’t just a legal mechanism for transferring assets. It’s a document that reflects who you are: what you valued, who you cared about, and what you hope will continue after you’re gone. For single adults without children, this conversation sometimes looks very different than it does for a traditional family — and often more personal.
Some clients want to leave something to the people who showed up for them: close friends, nieces and nephews, a neighbor who became family. Some want to support a cause or organization that mattered to them. Some want to make sure that specific meaningful items — the ones that don’t appear on any financial statement — go to the people who would most appreciate them.
All of this is possible with a thoughtful estate plan. And none of it happens automatically without one.
The Only Way to Make Your Wishes Legal Is to Write Them Down
I want to leave you with something straightforward: talking to your loved ones about what you want is not the same as making it legally enforceable. Intentions matter. But only a properly executed will or trust — prepared with an experienced estate planning attorney — gives those intentions legal force.
If you’ve been meaning to put a plan in place, or if it’s been several years since you’vereviewed what you have, now is the right time. Your plan should reflect your life as it is today — not as it was when you last thought about this.
Call my office at 561.935.9763 or visit www.TheCurranLawFirm.com to schedule a consultation. I’d be glad to help.
— Maura S. Curran, Esq. | Maura S. Curran Law | Jupiter, FLEstate Planning & Administration | 561.935.9763 | www.TheCurranLawFirm.com
