Protecting yourself from creditors while you are alive is quite different from protecting your family from creditors after you are gone. In most states, if you own or control property, your creditors can access your property to pay outstanding bills. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule in every state. Some states protect your home from creditors while others protect certain types of investments. Almost all states protect your retirement plan.

As you will learn in later chapters, after you are gone, it is a different game. You can create trusts that will give your family the benefit of the income from your property and even distributions of the property itself, and the trusts will keep creditors from touching that property. If asset protection is important to you, read the chapters in this book that discuss trusts so you will have an understanding of them. Then you should organize the information concerning your assets and make an appointment with an asset protection lawyer who can answer specific questions regarding your state's laws.