You’ve prudently and responsibly managed your financial affairs throughout your lifetime so, naturally, you have firm ideas about how you want your money, property and other assets distributed when you are no longer here. Basic estate planning tools – a will, living trust and beneficiary designations – allow you to clearly lay out how you want your affairs to be handled when you are gone.

Your thoughtful estate plan is an added gift you leave to your heirs, sparing them having to unravel your financial affairs and wonder what you would have wanted.

However, unless you take steps now, state law will determine who receives your estate assets – usually limited to your closest surviving relatives and how much they collect – even if that’s not what you would have wished. And you will have no opportunity to support charitable organizations like MUSC.

Most of your estate will be subject to “probate,” a court supervised process during which your assets are identified and preserved; debts, taxes, and estate settlement costs are paid; and whatever remains is distributed according to the terms of your will if you have one, otherwise as required by state law.

Some assets can be distributed without going through the probate process. For example, you can designate beneficiaries to receive certain bank accounts, investment accounts, life insurance policies, and retirement accounts after you are gone. In addition, assets that you place in a living trust can avoid probate and pass directly to named beneficiaries.

Your generous contributions have helped MUSC provide a comprehensive academic health science system to our South Carolinian community and beyond. We hope you will consider charitable contributions as you plan for the distribution of your estate. If you would like more information about how you can include MUSC in your estate plans, please contact Dana R. Taylor, CFRE, Senior Director of Development, Gift and Estate Planning, at tayldana@musc.edu or 843-792-3592.