You've surely heard the somewhat baffling news that music legend Prince died without leaving a will. A court hearing to determine the fate of Prince's estate — including the possible contents of a secretive vault the musician left behind at his Paisley Park Studios estate — concluded recently with a special administrator appointed but no will discovered.
This high-profile case of apparent negligence has rekindled the collective finger-wagging over having the correct estate-planning documents. But the question that remains is: Why is it important to have a will?
Statistics suggest that a majority of Americans don't have a will. And after reading hundreds of these documents, I've found that even most people who do have a will have one with suboptimal language they don't understand.