Or is it? When did you first do it, why did you first do it?
Have your circumstances changed – were you initially single and are now married? Were you married and are now divorced? Were you single but now have a committed partner? Did you initially not have children and now have children? If you have children, are one or more if your children neuroatypical or disabled? Substantial change in personal circumstances necessitate reworking our plans.
Have your assets changed? Maybe when you initially put your plan in place all your assets were located in Massachusetts. Have you since acquired a vacation house or a share in vacation house located in another state? Do you spend significant time in another state? COVID showed us that work can happen anywhere. A change in assets requires revisiting your plan and making sure ALL your assets are handled as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Are you still in contact with the people you named as Guardian for Minor Children, Power of Attorney, Health Care Agent, Personal Representative (formerly Executor)? Do those individuals still have the capacity to act in those roles? Can your adult children step into the primary or successor roles?
Many folks do get a plan in place because they have young children. How old are those children now? If you did plans for young children, were the documents written to contemplate additional children? The actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s weren’t and as a result his “afterborn” children were not included in his asset distribution (https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/20/heres-why-philip-seymour-hoffmans-will-is-a-mess.html).
Do you want to change the terms around which your children receive your assets…maybe when you started, 25 or 30 years old sounded reasonable. Is one or more of your children not “financially mature” yet, do they have circumstances that would make distributing assets to them outright worrisome (divorce, etc.)
Don’t get me wrong, we’re THRILLED you have a plan in place (even now, only about 1/3 of us do), but an estate plan is not “one and done.” Let’s take a look and make sure it still does what you want it to do, and that people of your choice are in charge, if you can’t be.