A surprising number of high earners, physicians very much included, have no will at all. The comforting story is always the same: I will get to it later. But here is the part that story leaves out. Choosing not to make a will is not the same as avoiding a plan. It simply means the state already has one written and ready to apply on your behalf.
When a person dies without a will, they are said to die intestate, and at that point state law takes over and dictates who inherits. It follows a fixed order, typically spouse, then children, then parents, and onward, applied mechanically and without the slightest regard for what you actually would have wanted. The statute does not know your family. It only knows its formula.
That default rarely matches anyone's real wishes, and the mismatches can be painful. The close friend you would have remembered, the charity you cared about, the deliberately unequal split you had good reasons for, all of it vanishes. The outcomes can get especially messy for blended families, and for unmarried partners, who under many state formulas receive nothing at all regardless of how committed the relationship was.
The most painful gap of all involves children. Without a will, you have not named anyone to serve as guardian for your minor kids, which means a court will decide who raises them, choosing among relatives who may step forward, sometimes amid conflict, and possibly landing on a person you would never have selected. The people who love your children may end up at odds, and a judge who has never met your family makes the call you should have made yourself.
There is a practical cost too. Without a will to streamline things, assets often pass through probate in a slower, more public, and more expensive way than they otherwise might, adding friction at exactly the moment a grieving family least needs it.
For physicians, the stakes run higher than average, because a substantial net worth combined with the complex families and varied assets that often accompany a medical career makes the one-size-fits-all default plan especially likely to misfire. A will is simply how you keep the pen in your own hand instead of surrendering it to a statute.
Because the default plan is so rarely the one you would choose, a properly drafted will is one of the highest-value documents a physician can put in place. We're here to take care of you, and our team at Compass can help coordinate your overall plan and connect you with the right counsel to make sure your wishes, not a statute's, are the ones that hold.
