Here’s a stat that should make you put down your coffee: the average age of someone who dies in a car accident in the United States is 38. Not 78. Thirty-eight.

Nobody wants to think about that. But here’s the thing: estate planning isn’t about being old, or sick, or morbid. It’s about being smart. And the single biggest reason people delay setting up a proper trust-based estate plan is a reason that sounds reasonable on the surface but completely falls apart under scrutiny: “I’ll do it when I really need to.”

Let’s talk about why that logic is exactly backwards.

The whole point of a trust — which is the cornerstone of most good estate plans — is that you set it up while everything is fine. You’re healthy, you’re sharp, you can make thoughtful decisions about who gets what, who’s in charge if you can’t be, and how your kids or grandkids receive their inheritance. The trust sits there, quietly doing nothing, while you live your life. Then, if something happens — whether that’s death, a stroke, a diagnosis, or just gradually needing more help — everything is already in order. No probate court (the slow, public, expensive government process for distributing assets without a plan). No family confusion. And with the right kind of plan, no long term care costs eviscerating your savings. You already handled it.

As for the “I’m not rich enough” hesitation — let’s do a quick gut check. Do you own a home? Do you have retirement accounts or savings? Do you have kids or a spouse who depends on you? Then yes, you have an estate, and yes, it matters what happens to it. The clients who benefit most from trust planning aren’t the ultra-wealthy with teams of accountants. They’re middle-class families with a paid-off house and a few hundred thousand in savings — people who worked hard for what they have and don’t want a court process or family dispute to unravel it.

And here’s the kicker about timing that most people never consider: you can only create a solid estate plan when you’re legally competent to do so. If you wait until a crisis — a serious diagnosis, a sudden cognitive decline — you may have waited too long. At that point, your options shrink dramatically. The time to build the roof is before it rains.

The Bottom Line: There’s no magic age or magic number in your bank account that unlocks the right moment to do this. The right moment is when you have people or things you care about — and you almost certainly already do. A good estate plan is really just a love letter to the people you’d leave behind, written while you still have the clarity and time to get it right. If you’ve been putting this off because it feels like something Future You should deal with, consider this your nudge. Questions? This is genuinely our favorite thing to talk about — reach out anytime.

Visit www.duboiselderlaw.com/contact or call 845.420.7999