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How to Review Your Plan Once a Year

By Jason Su · Updated September 18, 2026

Pick one date you already remember — the day you file your taxes, your birthday, the start of the year — and spend thirty minutes on six checks. That is the whole system. The reason most plans fail is not that people did not do the work; it is that they did it once and never looked again.

Why a stale plan is worse than no plan

An out-of-date plan is confidently wrong, and that is a different problem from having nothing.

If you have no plan, everyone knows to be careful. If you have a plan from 2016, your family trusts it. They follow the phone number for a friend you fell out with, assume an account still exists, and hand a document to a hospital that names a person you would no longer choose.

A stale plan also tends to fail in the same few places, and they are predictable:

• Beneficiary designations that no longer match your wishes — usually the single biggest problem, because they often override the will entirely
• A person who can no longer serve as agent or named decision-maker, because they have died, moved away, or become unwell
• Contact details that have changed, turning a useful page into a dead end
• Documents that have moved and are no longer where your plan says they are

Every one of those is fixable in minutes once a year.

Pick a date you cannot forget

Do not schedule this in the abstract. Attach it to something that already happens:

• When you file your taxes
• Your birthday
• The first weekend of the year
• The same day you change the smoke alarm batteries

Then write the new date on the front of the binder when you finish. That single habit is what makes it real — the date on the cover tells anyone looking whether the plan is current.

The thirty-minute check

Work down these six, in order. Most years, most of them take under a minute.

1. Has anything changed about the people?

Marriages, divorces, births, deaths, estrangements, and moves. This is the check that catches the most consequential problems, and it takes two minutes.

Ask specifically: is the person I named still the person I would choose?

2. Are the names still right?

Legal names change. Someone you named in 2014 may have married, and a hospital or a bank working from a birth name creates friction you do not want to be resolving under pressure.

3. Are the phone numbers still right?

Phone numbers change more often than anything else on the page, and a plan full of dead numbers is a plan that stalls. Call the two that matter — your agent and your first contact — and confirm the numbers work.

4. Do the beneficiary designations still match what you want?

This is the one people skip, and it is the one that most often decides what actually happens.

Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and payable-on-death accounts pass according to the form, not according to your will. A designation naming an ex-partner, a deceased parent, or nobody at all will override a carefully written document. Check every one, and update what has drifted.

5. Is everything still where you said it is?

Walk to the safe, the drawer, the box. Confirm the documents are actually there. Documents migrate — someone borrows one, a folder gets reorganised, a bank box gets closed.

6. Does the emergency binder still exist, and can somebody find it?

Confirm the binder is where it should be, that the cover page is current, and that the person named on it still knows they are named. A plan nobody can find is not a plan. See how to set up an emergency binder.

The five-minute version

Some years you will not have thirty minutes. Then do just these three:

1. Does the person I named still know they are named?
2. Are the beneficiary forms still what I want?
3. Is the document still where I said it was?

Those three catch the failures that actually cause trouble. The rest can wait for a year when you have more time.

What to do when you find something wrong

Fix it while you are looking at it, if you can.

• A wrong phone number or address — change it on the sheet. Thirty seconds.
• A person who can no longer serve — you may need a new document. Note it and make the call. Do not let it slide to next year, because next year is not guaranteed.
• An outdated beneficiary form — update it with the institution directly. This is usually a form on their website, and it is one of the highest-value five minutes in this entire process.
• A document that has moved — update the location everywhere it is written down, not just in one place.

Then write the new review date on the front of the binder.

What not to do

• Do not rely on memory for the review. A date you have to think of will not happen. Attach it to something that already exists in your year.
• Do not skip the beneficiary check because your will is up to date. The forms very often decide more than the will does. See five mistakes that make a will useless.
• Do not treat the review as an audit. It is six questions, not a reorganisation. If you turn it into a project, you will skip it.
• Do not fix only the copy in front of you. Locations tend to be written down in two or three places — the binder, the checklist, and a letter. Update them all.
• Do not assume someone will remind you. Nobody will. That is precisely why the date is on the cover, in your own handwriting.
• Do not leave an obvious problem for next year. If you have spotted something that needs a new document, deal with it now.

Frequently asked

How long does this actually take?

Thirty minutes for the six checks, assuming nothing needs fixing. Most years, one item needs a five-minute update.

What if I have not looked at any of this in ten years?

Then this year’s review will take an afternoon rather than thirty minutes, because several things will need fixing. Do it anyway — the first pass is the expensive one, and every year after that is quick.

How often should a will be reviewed?

Once a year as a habit, and immediately after any of these: marriage, divorce, a birth or death in the family, moving state, or a significant change in what you own. See where to keep your will.

Do I need a lawyer for the review?

Not for the check itself. If you find that a document needs to change, that is when a professional is worth involving — and it is usually a smaller job than people fear, because the hard thinking has already been done.

Should I tell my family I reviewed it?

Yes, especially if anything changed. “I updated my paperwork, the binder is still in the study” is a complete sentence, and it keeps the plan findable.

What if I miss a year?

Then do it now. The value is in the habit, not in the calendar date — the plan does not expire because you were busy.

Next step

Open your calendar and put a recurring reminder on a date you will not forget. Then do the six checks once, this week, and write the date on the front of the binder.

The free Master Checklist is a good prompt for the walk-through, and the Checklist Builder will regenerate your “where everything lives” page when something changes.

This is general information, not legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules about wills, beneficiaries, and documents differ by state and change over time — please talk with a licensed professional about your situation.