When you and your spouse made your plan, you probably pictured one of you carrying on. You named each other. You talked about how the survivor would take care of the kids, the house, and each other.
It makes complete sense if you never asked the harder question: what happens if neither of you can?
When I review a couple's plan, I want them to be able to answer three things:
Who inherits first?
How long does that person have to outlive you?
Who inherits if they don't?
Many of us remember the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, in 2025. Authorities concluded she died first, and that their deaths were days apart. It's a heartbreaking reminder that couples don't always get years between them to update a plan.
For your family, it raises a very practical question. If you leave everything to each other, what happens when neither of you are here? Outliving your spouse by a few hours doesn't always mean inheriting. Your documents, the rules for each asset, and California law decide what happens next.
A few hours can change everything
If you leave most of what you have to your spouse, you're probably imagining them using it for years. But say your spouse dies just two days after you. Where does that property go next?
Here's a common example: Your will leaves everything to your spouse. Your spouse's will leaves everything to their children from a prior marriage. If your spouse lived long enough to meet the survival requirement, your property may pass into their estate and then to their children- not yours. If not, your own documents and California law decide who gets it instead.
Probate is the court-supervised process for settling an estate. If property goes through probate at both deaths, your family may have to do it twice, and in California, that's expensive and slow. Assets held in a trust or passing to a named beneficiary follow their own rules, which is one reason a well-funded trust matters so much here.
In a blended family, you may want to take care of your spouse and protect your own children's inheritance. Your plan needs to do both, including if you die days apart.
What a survivorship clause actually does
A survivorship clause says how long someone must outlive you to inherit. For example, your plan might require your spouse to survive you by 30 days. The right number depends on your goals, the rest of your plan, and the law.
If your spouse doesn't make it that long, the clause treats them as if they died before you for that gift. Your backup instructions then decide who receives it instead. In our two-day example, a 30-day requirement would keep that property from passing through your spouse's estate. Naming the right backups matters just as much as picking the number of days.
One important catch: a clause in your will or trust doesn't automatically change your life insurance, your retirement account, or how your home is titled. Each asset has to be checked on its own.
Don't count on California's default rules
What if your documents don't name a survival period? Many people assume the law fills in a generous one. In California, the defaults are narrower than you might expect.
California does have a 120-hour (five-day) survival rule, but it mainly applies when someone dies without a will. For property passing under a will or trust that's silent on the question, outliving your spouse by even a short time may be enough. And if no one can prove who died first, a separate rule treats each spouse as having outlived the other for their own property.
Default rules can't know whether you want property to stay on one side of the family, whether a beneficiary has special needs, or how you want to provide for children from an earlier relationship. That's why I always ask about your family before choosing the wording. A longer survival period isn't automatically better, it needs to fit your wishes.
A joint trust doesn't answer this on its own
Couples with a joint living trust sometimes assume it handles all of this automatically. It may not.
Your trust still needs to say what happens at the first death, what changes if the surviving spouse dies within the survival period, and how everything divides once you're both gone. Separate property, retirement accounts, life insurance, and anything that never made it into the trust can raise their own questions.
For a blended family, that might mean separate shares, keeping some assets in trust after the first death, or different instructions for particular property. There's no one-size-fits-all clause I can paste into every couple's plan. The language has to match what you own, who you love, and what you want to happen next.
Your beneficiary forms need the same answer
Your will and trust aren't the only instructions that count. Life insurance, retirement accounts, and some bank and investment accounts usually go to whoever is named on the beneficiary form no matter what your will says.
Say your life insurance names your spouse first and your adult daughter as backup. If your spouse dies shortly after you, who gets the money? The policy, the form, and California law decide that- not your will.
When I review a plan, I compare those forms with your trust, your will, how your assets are titled, and the role each person is meant to play. When it helps, I loop in your financial advisor, insurance agent, or CPA. Your family won't experience the trust, the 401(k), the insurance, and the house as separate projects. When something happens, it all arrives at once.
Your family needs the answer before the emergency
When two deaths happen close together, your family won't have the time or the emotional bandwidth to figure out what you meant.
That's why I work with families for the long haul, not just for a signing day. Your family will have someone who already knows your plan, your people, and what you wanted your resources to do. I can help them see which assets are involved, which instructions control, and which other advisors to bring in even while they're gathering for the funeral.
Together, we work through four questions:
If we die hours or days apart, whose beneficiaries receive what?
Would anything have to go through two estates or two probates?
Do our trust, will, asset titles, and beneficiary forms all give the same answer?
Does that answer still fit our family today?
What you can do right now
Pull out your documents and search for the words "survive" or "survivorship." Jot down the survival period you find, and bring it to our conversation.
Please don't change a beneficiary form or copy a survivorship clause from the internet based on this article. The wording and the law really do matter, and the right answer depends on your family.
In a Life & Legacy Planning Session, we'll look at how your plan handles this, along with everything else that matters to the people you love. And because my relationship with clients doesn't end when the documents are signed, when something happens, your family knows who to call.
