When couples engage in estate planning, it's usually at the wife's urging.
Whether more intuitive than men or not, women sense the need to plan ahead for their elderly years better than men.
There may be many psychological explanations for this, but the fact is, wives have good reason to be more concerned about the future than their husbands.
Consider that of all women over the age of 65 in America, 42 percent are widows, according to a recent Forbes article.
Conversely, only 14 percent of men over 65 are widowers.
This discrepancy occurs for two reasons: women tend to live longer than men, and women tend to marry older men.
The typical woman faces several years of living on their own, with diminishing capacity over time.
In this common scenario, it's important for the wife to have planned ahead, not only to ensure she has financial stability, but also to determine who will have authority to act on her behalf for financial and medical issues that must be addressed on a day-to-day basis.
Second, consider that because women typically have lower lifetime earnings than their husbands, and because they usually outlive their husbands, they are more likely to suffer the consequences of insufficient estate planning and financial planning.
For example, if a husband has a child from a prior marriage, in Vermont the surviving spouse is entitled to only half of the husband's estate if no will or trust exists.
The lack of planning in some situations can alter the wife's standard of living, forcing her to downsize and scale back at a time in her life when she is least equipped to adapt.
Third, consider that even if all of the couple's assets pass to the wife following the husband's death, this places the surviving wife in the role of making all of the inheritance decisions, for instance whether the children inherit equally or unequally, who receives the prized family possessions, whether to leave money to charities, and how to minimize state and federal estate taxes.
As we age, most people prefer to make fewer big decisions, not more.
Placing this burden solely on the surviving spouse is often more responsibility than they want to take on.
Nearly all couples would prefer that these decisions be jointly addressed when both spouses are in their prime.
Finally, consider that if Congress is unable to push through changes to the federal estate tax laws this year, beginning in 2011 the amount that can pass estate tax free to the next generation will be reduced to levels not seen since 2003.
Many more families will be subject to federal and state estate taxes in 2011 than have been subject to the tax over the past several years.
One crucial component of estate planning involves preserving the decedent's federal and state estate tax exemption amount, which is the amount that can pass tax free.
Each spouse has an exemption, which is like a coupon you can use to pay less tax.
But if you don't preserve your exemption through estate planning, a couple typically loses one exemption when the first spouse dies.
Consequently, because only one exemption remains at the death of the second spouse, your children could end up paying much more in estate taxes than necessary.
The bottom line? Wives shouldn't let their husbands postpone estate planning until after it is too late.