3 Legal Papers You Shouldn't Live Without

You may not need a trust, an elaborate estate plan or even a will. But unless you want a stranger making important decisions for you and your family, there are some things you do need.

Most Americans don't have wills, but that's not the crisis many in the estate-planning industry would have you believe. With a few exceptions -- which we'll talk about below -- most people's quality of life won't be much improved by a will.

That's because your state already has a basic plan for distributing your stuff when you die. You're dead, so what do you care? If who got your CD player and your comic book collection wasn't important enough for you to bother with a will while you were alive, it certainly won't matter to you after you're gone.

What your state doesn't have, though, is an efficient way to take care of you if you're still breathing but unable to make your own decisions because of incapacitating illness or injury.

So if you get in a car accident and die, your estate will be distributed more or less efficiently. Get in a car accident and end up in a coma, and you could be in a world of hurt.

Read the  Full Article Here  by Liz Pulliam Weston.