Experts warn of a growing national crisis unrelated to politics, the economy, or the usual headline grabbers. It is a caregiving crisis, and it now touches nearly one-fourth of American adults. That means that either you are already feeling the strain of caregiving, or there may come a day when you rely on someone else to step in for you. More than 60 million Americans act as caregivers to family members, many of whom have chronic, disabling, or serious health conditions. This largely invisible workforce forms the backbone of long-term care in the United States. Caregiving today often goes far beyond helping with errands or meals. It may also involve physical care, medical coordination, emotional support, day-to-day decision-making, and, more often than people expect, financial oversight.
Most caregivers receive no formal training. Many are not fully prepared to shoulder responsibilities that closely resemble—and in many cases, legally are—the duties of a fiduciary. A fiduciary is someone legally authorized to act on your behalf and required to put your interests first. As people live longer and professional caregiving resources remain limited, family members may feel ethically, practically, and sometimes financially obligated to step into these roles. When plans fail to clearly identify who will act or fail to match those roles to real-world capacity, a second crisis can emerge on top of an already stressful situation.
Whether you have already named a caregiver in your planning documents or you simply assume that someone will step in, that choice deserves more scrutiny than familiarity alone. Capability matters as much as preparation. The right question is not only “Who loves me?” but “Who can realistically do this, for how long, and with what support?”
Putting the Caregiving Crisis in Perspective
Three overlapping factors drive the caregiving crisis: Americans are living longer, more older adults require care, and public programs such as Medicaid offer limited access to professional caregivers. As a result, family members increasingly step into these roles regardless of whether they are ready, and many are not. What frequently begins as a modest commitment can come to resemble a second job. Caregivers may find themselves—without training or preparation—coordinating medical care, managing medications, and handling finances. According to the Caregiving in the US 2025 report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving:
- Sixty-three million US adults—almost one in four—provide ongoing care to a relative or friend.
- Most care recipients (59 million) are older adults with multiple chronic conditions.
- Caregivers spend an average of 27 hours per week providing care; nearly one in four provides 40 hours or more.
Caregiving typically includes assisting with activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing or dressing, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), including shopping, appointments, and finances. More than half act as an advocate for their care recipient.
Many are also responsible for complex medical tasks, such as administering injections, monitoring symptoms, and communicating with healthcare providers. Yet only a small fraction of family caregivers have received formal training.
Financial responsibility is equally common. A report by Merrill Lynch found that 92 percent of daily-living caregivers are also financial caregivers. As care continues, financial responsibilities tend to increase. After two years, more than half of care recipients require assistance managing all their finances. Yet many caregivers and care recipients never discussed these responsibilities in advance.
The strain is particularly acute for those in the “sandwich generation” who are balancing care for aging parents while raising children and maintaining careers.
Rethinking Your Choice of Caregiver
Caregivers often become fiduciaries when they manage finances or make medical decisions. The law holds fiduciaries to a very high standard of care. If they fail to act in your best interest, they may be personally liable for the harm their decisions cause.
That authority may arise through court involvement, but it is far more preferable to designate decision-makers in advance through documents such as powers of attorney.
However, naming someone is different from preparing them.
Many people default to familiar choices—spouses, oldest children, or the person who once agreed years ago—without evaluating whether that person is truly positioned to serve now.
Common assumptions include the following:
- My spouse will handle everything.
- My oldest child is the obvious choice.
- They agreed to serve in this role years ago, so surely they can still do so.
But real-world capacity matters more than closeness. Emotional steadiness under pressure, geographic proximity, willingness to make hard decisions, organizational skills, and the ability to work with other family members often matter far more than good intentions.
Warning Signs Your Plan May Not Match Reality
Certain red flags often signal a mismatch between the role you have assigned and the person you have chosen to fulfill that role.
- Someone who lives far away may struggle to respond quickly during medical events or manage ongoing coordination.
- Surprise appointments. If the person you have named to a particular role is unaware of their appointment, it is a major warning sign that they are not ready.
- No backups. Life changes. Without named backups (contingents), courts may end up deciding who steps in.
- Work demands, financial stress, children at home, or existing caregiving responsibilities can push even the most well-meaning people past their limits.
- Skill gaps. Comfort with medical decisions, finances, organization, or emotional stress matters hugely and varies widely from person to person.
- No realistic family option. In some situations, every family choice carries tradeoffs that increase conflict or risk.
Even if your first choice for a caregiver is a medical or financial professional, practical limits remain important. Do they have the time, proximity, and emotional bandwidth to take on this role? Do they have the support they may need if your care becomes more complex?
These are questions worth asking yourself and then discussing with your estate planning attorney.
Know Your Role: Fiduciary Duties and When Engaging a Professional Makes Sense
Being named a fiduciary is more than an honorific. It is a serious responsibility that, without support, can become an unworkable burden. In some cases, hiring a professional makes more sense than relying solely on family or friends. Even when you choose someone familiar, that person should have access to a professional support team, such as your attorney, certified public accountant, or financial advisor, to help navigate the technical and legal aspects of the role. Below is a plain-English overview of what each role involves, what can go wrong, and how professional support can help.
Agent Under a Power of Attorney
- The role: Authorized to manage your finances during your lifetime, including banking, investments, bill payment, and real estate transactions
- What can go wrong: Poor recordkeeping, informal reimbursements, or family disputes, often after your incapacity or death
- What it can cost: Required repayment, personal liability, legal fees, and court proceedings
- How a professional can help: A professional agent or co-agent can provide structure, documentation, and neutrality when finances or family dynamics are complex
Executor (or Personal Representative)
- The role: Settles your estate after death by gathering assets, paying debts and taxes, and distributing property according to your plan and the law
- What can go wrong: Delays, disputes, or perceived favoritism that trigger objections or claims of fiduciary breach
- What it can cost: Personal liability, removal by the court, legal fees, prolonged probate, and erosion of estate value
- How a professional can help: A professional executor or coexecutor can reduce friction and keep administration on track when complexity or conflict is likely
Trustee
- The role: Manages and distributes trust assets according to the trust’s terms, often for many years
- What can go wrong: Misinterpretation of trust provisions, inconsistent distributions, or poor accounting
- What it can cost: Personal liability, removal, surcharge claims, legal fees, and depletion of trust assets
- How a professional can help: A professional trustee can provide technical expertise, consistency, and emotional neutrality
The Hidden Cost That Most People Miss
Beyond legal exposure, fiduciaries often give up hundreds of hours of personal time and may need to make major decisions while grieving, which can cloud judgment and increase risk. Professional fiduciaries do involve out-of-pocket costs—typically 1–2 percent of assets—but those costs are often modest compared with the costs of delays, disputes, litigation, or court intervention. In many cases, professional support preserves more value than it costs. Another option is compensating family fiduciaries at a similar rate, recognizing the role as the serious responsibility it is.
Preparing and Supporting Your Fiduciaries
Think about your choice of fiduciaries the same way you would your future caregivers. It is about capacity every bit as much as, or more than, trust and familiarity. Before finalizing your estate plan, ask yourself the following questions about your fiduciaries:
- Does this person have the time, organization, and emotional steadiness the role requires?
- Do they know they have been named to a specific fiduciary role (and what that means)?
- Have I made my expectations clear to them?
- Do they know where my documents, records, and key contacts’ information are located?
- What happens if they cannot or should not serve when the time comes?
During the planning process, we can help you move beyond discussions to practical actions that include not only naming the right fiduciaries but also
- helping you organize assets and key contacts’ information in a single location;
- designing a guide for specific fiduciaries; and
- having a fiduciary walk-through meeting with you and them to clarify responsibilities before the role becomes active.
Being a fiduciary is a significant burden, but it is not one that fiduciaries must face alone. We are here to help.
Backup Plans: Why You Need Contingent Agents and Guardians
Progressive Insurance recently rolled out a series of commercials featuring “backup” quarterbacks stepping in to handle everyday challenges, such as ordering food, giving advice, and even parking a trailer. After the “backup” salvages the situation, each commercial ends with the same line: “If only there were backups in real life.” The ads are designed to emphasize how a backup can provide peace of mind when the unexpected occurs, as it often does, in both football and life. Progressive frames the point simply: “It’s always a good idea to have a backup plan.” The humor hinges on the premise’s absurdity. In most areas of life, a person cannot summon a backup to act on their behalf during a deeply personal moment and expect that substitute to seamlessly complete the task.
Estate planning represents a notable exception. Real-life backups are contingent decision-makers designated in advance to step in if a primary decision-maker cannot serve. These contingents function much like backup quarterbacks: prepared to act quickly, often under pressure, and sometimes when the stakes are high. An estate plan that names only primary decision-makers may appear complete on paper. Without contingents, however, the plan lacks the depth needed to remain effective when circumstances change, much like a football team without a backup quarterback.
Backups Prevent Chaos
When a team has no backup quarterback, it risks losing its entire passing game the moment the starter goes down. In desperation, coaches may be forced to put a non-quarterback under center to keep the game moving, with predictably disastrous results. After a high-profile game exposed this exact problem, the National Football League changed its rules, adopting an “emergency quarterback” policy to ensure that, even in extreme circumstances, a team would not be left without an on-field quarterback. The logic is structural rather than sentimental: the quarterback is a control point for the entire strategy, and the system quickly falls apart when no prepared backup exists to take over.
The same dynamic exists in estate planning. When a plan relies on a single decision-maker with no designated contingency, it creates a fragile structure—one illness, conflict, relocation, or instance of unavailability away from confusion, delay, or court involvement.
Contingents provide stabilization and strategic depth. They allow your estate plan to keep functioning even when life goes off script.
Fielding the Right Team in an Estate Plan
Backups are not expected to completely fill the starter’s shoes. If they could, they would be starting. However, they are expected to be part of the game plan so that, if they are needed, the drop-off is manageable and the system can continue to operate. That is an excellent way to think about contingents in an estate plan. Their role is not perfection but continuity.
When backup decision-makers are not built in, all bets are off. Decisions stall. Authority becomes unclear. Courts or third parties may be forced to step in. And unlike football, where the fallout affects both players and fans, the real-world consequences land on family members, often during moments of stress, grief, or medical crisis. Just as damaging as having no backup is having the wrong one. Naming someone who is unavailable, unprepared, or no longer appropriate can be the equivalent of signing a player off the street and hoping for the best. The position may be filled, but the drop-off is glaring, and the system will not function as intended.
Common Contingent Oversights and the Problems They Cause
Contingents, like backup quarterbacks, are best viewed as necessary additions to your decision-making team. Whether on the field or in real life, things rarely go exactly as planned. Not having the right backups in place can cause an otherwise well-drafted estate plan to quickly break down, sometimes at the worst possible moment.
Financial Power of Attorney
- Only one agent has been named, with no contingent agent.
- A contingent agent was named years ago and may no longer be an appropriate choice.
- Coagents are named without clear instructions on authority (for example, whether they must act jointly or may act independently, and how disagreements are to be resolved).
Result: Financial decisions stall, accounts freeze, and families may be forced to go to court.
Healthcare Agent
- Only one health care agent has been named, with no alternate.
- The named agent may be unavailable (out of state, difficult to reach, or unable to respond quickly during a medical event).
- The agent’s current views may no longer align with the client’s wishes (or the client’s wishes have evolved and have not been clearly communicated).
Result: Treatment decisions may be delayed, authority can become unclear, and family conflict often escalates during medical crises.
Executor or Personal Representative
- No alternate executor has been named.
- The named executor is unwilling or unable to serve.
- The named executor lacks capacity or lives far away, limiting availability for time-sensitive tasks.
Result: Probate is delayed, costs increase, and court involvement becomes more likely at a sensitive time.
Guardians for Minor Children
- A guardian has been named for one child but not for others.
- No backup guardian has been named.
- The named guardian’s circumstances have materially changed (health, location, family responsibilities, or financial stability).
Result: Courts must decide custody and identify backup choices without knowing the parents’ wishes. Across all these roles, the pattern is the same. Change was unanticipated, and the plan failed as a result. Depth was never built into the system. Or if it was, it was the wrong kind of depth. The listed backup was not read into the game plan or in “playing shape.” They had not had sufficient practice to be game-ready.
Backups Are a Sign of Readiness
Nobody would accuse a team with a solid backup quarterback of being pessimistic or overly worrisome. Backups are standard procedure because the position carries high stakes, and the consequences of being unprepared are immediate.
Estate plans work the same way. Naming backups (successor trustees, alternate personal representatives, backup agents under powers of attorney, and contingent guardians) is not “expecting the worst.” It is smart redundancy: an added layer of protection that helps your plan hold up when life does not cooperate. And, just as with a team’s lineup order, those choices should be revisited and updated during regular plan reviews.
Teams do not hesitate to replace a backup when the fit is wrong for the system or the locker room, and you should not hesitate either. Sometimes the person you picked years ago has moved, become unavailable, changed in capacity, or is simply not the best match for what your family needs today. In real life, just as in football, you sometimes need someone ready to step in when life does not go according to plan. However you look at it, your backups are every bit as important as the starters in your estate plan and require a specific skill set—and preparation—to succeed when they are called.
Do you need help choosing the right backups or coaching your chosen contingents? We are here for more than a temporary start; we have dynasty and legacy building in mind.
