You will write a dated plan to get your will, nominations and LPA done.
Estate planning is the layer people agree with most and do least. Everyone nods at the idea of a will. Very few people under 40 have one, and fewer still have an LPA. The reason is rarely cost or difficulty. Four documents, each with its own process, feel like a project for a free weekend that never comes.
This exercise breaks the project into four small jobs with dates on them. It takes about twenty-five minutes to plan, and by the end of the week one of the four should be finished. You need your asset list from lesson 8.1, your CPF dashboard, your insurers' apps or policy documents, and your calendar.
Write four rows: will, CPF nomination, insurance nominations, LPA. For each, write whether you have it, and if you do, when it was made and whether it still matches your life.
Then write what is needed to complete each one. Be specific. "Sort out will" will sit on the list for a year. "Choose an executor and a guardian, then book a lawyer" can be done.
For insurance nominations, give each policy its own line, because each one can carry a different nomination or none. Lesson 8.2 explained the two kinds.
Give every row a first step and a date. The first step is the smallest action that moves it forward, and most take minutes.
CPF nomination: make or update it online at cpf.gov.sg with Singpass. Insurance nominations: call or message each insurer, ask what nomination is on the policy, and request the forms to change it. Will: decide your beneficiaries, executor and any guardian, then book an appointment with a lawyer, or set a date to write it yourself and have it witnessed properly, as lesson 8.1 described. LPA: talk to the people you want as donees, then book a certificate issuer through the Office of the Public Guardian's list.
Put each date in your calendar as an appointment with a time attached, the way you would book a dentist. Spread them over the next two or three months, so no single week carries everything.
A document nobody can find helps nobody. For each one, write where it is kept: the original will with your lawyer or in a named drawer, the LPA in the Office of the Public Guardian's records, policy documents in your insurer's app.
Then tell the people you named. Your executor needs to know they are the executor and where the will is. Your donees need to know they are donees. Your family should know which insurers you hold policies with. A short message or a conversation over dinner is enough. You do not have to share amounts.
Add one reminder to look at all four documents again after any major life event: marriage, divorce, a child, a death in the family, a new home. Lesson 9.3 goes through these in detail.
Marriage needs a particular note. For non-Muslims, it cancels an existing CPF nomination, as lesson 8.2 said, and under the Wills Act it generally cancels a will made before the wedding too, unless the will was made with that marriage in mind. If a wedding is coming, tell the lawyer, or plan to redo both soon after.
Wei Ling works through her plan in October, with the details made up for the example.
Will: she has none. She wants her assets to go to her parents now and to Jun after they marry in two years. Because of the wedding, she asks a lawyer whether to make a will now in contemplation of the marriage, or a simple one now and a new one afterwards. First step: book a consultation by 31 October.
CPF nomination: she made it in lesson 8.2 and named her parents equally. Next step: make a new one after the wedding. She puts a reminder in her calendar for the month after the date they set.
Insurance nominations: two policies, status unknown. First step: message both insurers this Friday and ask what nomination each policy carries.
LPA: none. She wants her mother for welfare and Jun for property and affairs, with her brother as replacement for both. First step: talk to all three by the end of November, then book a certificate issuer for December.
She tells her parents that her CPF nomination is made and that a will is on the way, and she messages her brother about the LPA. Her review trigger is the wedding.
Her one finished step this week is the CPF nomination, which was already done, so she adds a second: she sends the two messages to her insurers on Friday as planned.
A finished plan is one page with four rows. Each row shows the document, its status, what is needed, a first step and a date, plus where the document will be kept and who knows about it. At the bottom is your review trigger.
A plan on paper with nothing yet moving is where most estate plans stall, so the last part of this exercise is action. Look down your four rows and find the step that would take you the least time.
Complete the estate action plan with a date against each document and do the first step for one of them this week.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).