No one really wants to sit around thinking about what will happen if they get seriously sick or so incapacitated they can’t make sound financial decisions — let alone contemplate the actual D word. But that doesn’t mean you can forget about estate planning altogether. It won’t just go away if you ignore it, and you could be leaving yourself vulnerable in the future.

Maybe you have a will, which is usually the centerpiece of an estate plan and allows you to say who gets what when you die. But that won’t cover everything.

Even if you’re young or short on assets, you need to take steps to protect the quality of your life and the lives you leave behind. My column for Daily Worth shows you how.

Elsewhere on the web, I disagree with Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley over financial aid in my column for Reuters.