A legal document authorising somebody to act on your behalf. Unlike a will, this one is for while you're alive — typically if you can't act for yourself. Without it, your family may have to go to court to get authority to handle your affairs, at exactly the moment they can least afford the delay.
The Document for Being Alive
A will handles what happens after. This handles the stretch where you're here but can't manage things — after an accident, during an illness, as capacity declines.
People plan carefully for death and skip this entirely, which is backwards: the odds of needing this at some point are higher.
There Is More Than One Kind
Arrangements differ in scope and in when they take effect, and medical decisions are usually handled by a separate document from financial ones. Those aren't the same authority and often aren't the same person.
The specifics are state law and the drafting determines what your person can actually do.
Choose Carefully, and Tell Them
You're handing somebody real authority over your affairs. Pick for judgement and trustworthiness, not for birth order, and make sure they know they've been named and where the document is.
A document nobody can find helps nobody. Get it drawn up by your attorney and keep it somewhere your family can reach.
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