National Estate Planning Awareness Week: Make Sure Your Estate Plan Still Reflects Your Life

Key Takeaways:

• National Estate Planning Awareness Week runs from October 19 to 25, 2026, and makes a natural annual check-in point.
• Marriage, divorce, births, deaths, and moves often mean your estate plan should be reviewed.
• Tax law changes, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's increase in the federal estate and gift tax basic exclusion amount, can outdate a plan even if your family hasn't changed.
• A short review with a Pennsylvania estate planning attorney can confirm whether your will, trust, and powers of attorney still work together.

National Estate Planning Awareness Week falls during the third week of October each year, October 19 to 25 in 2026, and it's a useful nudge for something most Pennsylvania families put off: an actual estate plan review. A will or trust signed a decade ago describes a version of your life that may no longer exist. Children have grown up, marriages have started or ended, and the tax rules that shaped your original plan have changed more than once.

If you can't remember the last time you looked at your documents, here are the signs it's time to take another look. A conversation with a Paoli estate planning lawyer can often settle the question in a single meeting, confirming whether your plan still works or pinpointing exactly what needs to change.

What Is National Estate Planning Awareness Week?

National Estate Planning Awareness Week was adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 to help the public understand the importance of estate planning. The National Association of Estate Planners & Councils continues to promote the annual awareness campaign. 

The timing is useful for another reason: many families make year-end financial decisions in the fourth quarter anyway. This makes October a natural moment to fold in a plan review alongside other planning.

Life Events That Signal It's Time for a Review

Certain milestones almost always call for a fresh look at your estate plan, even if nothing else about your finances has changed.

Marriage, Remarriage, or Divorce

Getting married or divorced can change both who you want making decisions for you and how Pennsylvania law affects who receives your property. Pennsylvania law generally makes will provisions benefiting or relating to a former spouse ineffective after divorce, which can leave unintended gaps if the rest of the estate plan was never updated.

Blended families face an added layer of complexity, since balancing a new spouse's needs against children from an earlier marriage rarely works with generic documents. 

A Birth, Death, or Change in Who You'd Name

The birth or adoption of a child may mean naming or reconsidering a guardian, while the arrival of a grandchild may prompt you to reconsider how and when younger beneficiaries should inherit. The death of a spouse, executor, or named beneficiary can leave a gap or cause successor provisions to take effect, making it important to confirm that the remaining plan still reflects your wishes. 

The three life events most likely to call for an updated will are a good starting checklist, though a full estate plan review involves more than the will alone.

A Move Across State Lines

Moving across state lines does not automatically invalidate your estate planning documents, but a new state's laws can affect how those documents are interpreted or administered. Tax rules can also change significantly. For example, Pennsylvania imposes an inheritance tax based largely on the beneficiary's relationship to the decedent.

Anyone who has moved into or out of Pennsylvania since their plan was signed should have it reviewed by an attorney familiar with the new state's requirements, rather than just filing it away and assuming it still works.

Changes in the Law Can Outdate a Plan Even When Your Family Hasn't

Tax law shifts on its own schedule, and a plan that made sense under one set of rules can become inefficient, or even work against you, under another. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act increased the federal estate and gift tax basic exclusion amount to $15 million per person for 2026, avoiding the lower exemption that otherwise would have taken effect.

Older trusts sometimes use formula language tied to “the exemption amount,” and that language now points to a very different number than the drafting attorney had in mind years ago. Depending on how the formula is written, a plan drafted around a lower exemption can divide assets differently than you now expect, potentially shifting more property into one share or trust than you intended.

Signs the Documents Themselves Are the Problem

Sometimes the trigger isn't a life event at all. There could be something wrong with the paperwork itself. A few examples show up again and again:

• Your financial and health care powers of attorney name someone who has since become unavailable, unwilling, or estranged.
• You have online accounts, cryptocurrency, or subscriptions, but there are no instructions for digital assets anywhere in your plan.
• A revocable living trust was signed but never funded, so the assets it was meant to hold are still titled in your own name.
• Beneficiary forms on life insurance or retirement accounts still name an ex-spouse, a deceased beneficiary, or someone you no longer intend to receive the asset.

Beneficiary designations deserve particular attention because assets such as life insurance and retirement accounts generally pass under their beneficiary forms rather than your will. Pennsylvania law can make certain designations benefiting a former spouse ineffective after divorce, but relying on default statutory rules instead of updating the forms can create unnecessary uncertainty and complications.

What a Full Estate Plan Review Actually Covers

A thorough review looks past the will to the whole set of documents working together: powers of attorney for finances and health care, guardianship nominations for minor children, trust funding, and beneficiary designations on every account that passes outside probate. 

Reviewing one document in isolation can create the same kind of gap the review was meant to close, since these pieces are written to work together as a set, not as standalone forms.

Make This Estate Planning Awareness Week the Year You Check

Most Pennsylvania families don't need to start from scratch. In many cases, an estate plan review confirms that the plan still works or identifies a handful of targeted updates rather than requiring a full rewrite. National Estate Planning Awareness Week is a timely reminder to ensure the documents you created years ago still protect the people, property, and priorities that matter to you today.