For a lot of families around Chicago, the weather this summer has stopped feeling like background noise. From putting a mask back on for the first time in years because of smoke from Canadian wildfires, to dragging downed trees out of my little suburban street to get to the office.
In the past two weeks, we’ve seen the tornado warnings come across our phones. The sky turning a strange shade of green that I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Another storm rolls through. Another neighborhood loses power. Another tree down. Basements flood. Roofs are damaged. Families who were cleaning up from one storm find themselves watching the radar for the next one to come barreling through our Illinois neighborhoods.
And the feeling that this has been an unusually intense stretch of weather is not just a feeling.
2026 Has Been an Extraordinary Year for Severe Weather in Illinois
Illinois has experienced a remarkable amount of severe weather in 2026, and Chicagoland has been right in the middle of it.
On June 10, a derecho swept across northern Illinois with wind gusts reaching 80 to 85 mph and widespread wind damage. Two EF-0 tornadoes were also confirmed in the National Weather Service Chicago area.
Then, just one day later, the region experienced one of its largest tornado outbreaks on record.
On June 11, the National Weather Service confirmed 24 tornadoes in its Chicago forecast area, making it the second-largest local tornado outbreak on record. Only the July 15, 2024 outbreak, which produced 32 tornadoes, was larger. The June outbreak included multiple strong tornadoes, including EF-2 and EF-3 tornadoes. And the storms kept coming.
On July 27, five more tornadoes were confirmed in the Chicago area, including tornadoes in Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, Orland Park, the Homewood-Flossmoor area and the Lynwood-Munster area. But tornadoes were only part of the destruction that day.
The National Weather Service documented widespread straight-line winds exceeding 75 mph. In portions of southern Cook and eastern Will counties, winds exceeded 90 mph, causing significant structural damage. The same storms produced hail as large as three inches and flash flooding.
Then, on August 11, another powerful storm system tore through the region. Hundreds of thousands of customers across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio lost power. Wind gusts reached 99 mph in Gary, Indiana, and tornadoes were again reported around the Chicago area.
This has not been one bad storm. It has been week after week of tornadoes, derechos, damaging winds, flooding, downed trees and extended power outages. Coincidentally, at FWLLS, we were in the middle of estate planning meetings during both storms that led to confusion and calls to loved ones in the middle of our morning meetings just to figure out if the world around us was still intact and our families safe.
For families watching trees fall onto houses, water pour into basements and roofs peel away, our hearts go out to you. But, it raises a practical question that probably does not make anyone’s storm-preparation checklist:
What Happens If Your Estate Planning Documents Are Destroyed?
Imagine a tornado damages your home. Your basement floods. A tree comes through the roof. A fire starts after a storm. Water destroys the filing cabinet where you keep your important papers.
Your insurance company can address the house. Contractors can make repairs. Furniture and belongings can eventually be replaced. But what about your estate planning documents?
Your Will. Your Trust. Your Powers of Attorney. Your Health Care Directive. The documents your family may need precisely because something unexpected has happened.
Are they gone too?
Not necessarily.
But this is one of those situations where how your estate plan was created, where your documents are kept, and what records your attorney maintains can make an enormous difference.
At FWLLS, We Keep Electronic Copies of Our Clients’ Documents
At Family Wealth & Legacy Legal Solutions, we maintain electronic copies of our clients’ signed estate planning documents.
If your estate planning binder is destroyed in a tornado, flood, fire, or other disaster, we are not starting from zero.
We have a record of what you signed.
That can become incredibly important when your family is already dealing with the aftermath of an emergency.
Our clients also sign an authorization telling us who they are comfortable having us speak with if they are unable to communicate with us themselves.
That authorization may not seem terribly important when everyone is healthy, and life is normal. It becomes much more important when life is not and the world, as you know it, has been destroyed.
If you are hospitalized, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to call us yourself, we already know whom you have authorized us to communicate with about your planning.
Your family is not left trying to convince us that “Mom would want you to talk to me.”
You already told us and gave us legal authorization to assist your loved ones in time of crisis.
There Is One Original We Particularly Want Your Family to Be Able to Find: Your Will
For many of the documents in your estate plan, having electronic copies puts us in a very good position to help if the originals are damaged or destroyed.
The original “Last Will and Testament,” however, deserves special attention.
Illinois law specifically addresses what is supposed to happen to a Will after someone dies. Under Section 6-1 of the Illinois Probate Act of 1975 (755 ILCS 5/6-1), the person who has the testator’s Will in his or her possession is required, immediately upon the testator’s death, to file the Will with the clerk of the court in the proper county.
That is why we tell families that the original Will matters. A photocopy or electronic scan is extremely valuable as a record of the document, but it is not automatically interchangeable with the original for probate purposes. So what happens if the original Will was in a house that was destroyed by a tornado?
Suppose we have an electronic copy of the signed Will in our records. The family knows where the original was kept. The home then sustains catastrophic storm damage, and the original cannot be recovered.
There may be photographs of the damage. There may be an insurance claim. There may be fire department records, police reports, contractor reports, National Weather Service information or other documentation showing exactly what happened to the home.
That is a very different situation from simply saying:
“We know there was a Will, but nobody knows what happened to it.”
Can an Illinois Court Accept a Copy of a Lost Will?
Potentially, yes. But it is not automatic.
A missing original Will can create a legal problem in Illinois because, under certain circumstances, the court may presume that a Will that was in the deceased person’s possession but cannot be found after death was intentionally revoked.
That does not necessarily end the discussion. The presumption can be challenged with evidence explaining why the original is missing and showing that the person did not intend to revoke the Will. This is where the circumstances surrounding a natural disaster could become extremely important.
If we knew that your original Will was stored in your home, we had an electronic copy of the signed document, and a tornado subsequently destroyed the part of the home where your important papers were kept, we would have something very important: an explanation for why the original cannot be produced.
If necessary, we could go to court. We could explain the circumstances to the judge. We could provide the copy maintained in our records along with evidence documenting what happened to the home and ask the court to permit the copy to be used. The judge ultimately makes that decision. We cannot guarantee that a copy will be accepted simply because an original document is missing.
But there is an enormous difference between having a copy of the signed Will, a law firm’s records and documented evidence explaining what happened to the original and having nothing at all.
Do Not Assume Every Attorney Has a Copy
It’s shocking how many people I have spoken with this year alone who have told me that after their parents have passed, they cannot locate their documents. What has been even more shocking to me as an attorney is that at least half a dozen people in the past few months have told me that the attorney who prepared that Will has since retired, moved to Florida, Europe, or passed away, and that they do not have ANY way of accessing their legal documents. In each of those cases, there has been no electronic footprint of the documents left behind.
This is also why it is worth asking your estate planning attorney a very simple question:
Do you keep copies of my signed documents?
Not every attorney or law firm maintains client records the same way.
Do not assume that because an attorney prepared your Will 10 or 15 years ago, someone can simply pull up a signed copy if yours disappears.
Know where your documents are.
Know whether your attorney has copies.
Make sure the people who would need to act for you know which attorney to call.
While You Are Checking Your Documents, Check Your Homeowners Insurance Too
There is another estate planning issue these storms have brought into sharp focus, particularly for families whose homes are owned by their living trusts. If you transferred your home into your trust as part of your estate plan, did you also tell your homeowners insurance company? This is an easy step to overlook.
Transferring your home into your trust changes the legal ownership of the property. Your insurance policy should reflect that ownership. Depending on the insurance company, that may mean adding the trust as an “additional insured” or obtaining an appropriate trust endorsement.
We wrote about this issue previously in Trusts and Insurance: The Overlooked Detail That Could Cost You Your Home.
The recent storms make that conversation particularly timely. Imagine doing everything correctly from an estate planning perspective. You created your trust. You transferred your home into it. You avoided leaving one of your largest assets outside your plan.
Then a tornado tears part of the roof off your house, a tree falls onto the structure, or wind-driven rain causes substantial damage. That is not the moment you want to discover that the name on the deed and the ownership reflected on your insurance policy do not line up.
When a home is transferred into a trust, we recommend notifying the homeowners insurance carrier and confirming that the policy properly recognizes the trust’s interest in the property. It is also a good opportunity to review whether your coverage reflects current rebuilding costs, whether detached structures are adequately covered, and whether liability coverage extends appropriately to both you and the trust.
The goal is simple: your estate plan and your insurance coverage should work together. A trust is supposed to make things easier for your family. It should not create an avoidable insurance problem because one administrative step was missed. And after the weather Chicagoland has experienced this summer, this is not merely a theoretical exercise. If your home is in your trust and you are not sure whether your homeowners insurance was updated when the property was transferred, call your insurance agent and ask.
The Safest Place Is Not Always the Best Place
After weeks of tornadoes and destructive storms, it is natural to think about putting important documents somewhere extremely secure.
A bank safe-deposit box sounds secure. A heavy locked safe sounds secure. And physically, they may be. But estate planning documents are not valuable simply because they are protected from the elements. They are valuable because the right people can access them when they are needed. That is why we generally do not recommend putting your estate planning documents in a safe-deposit box or locked safe unless someone else you trust has appropriate access. Think about the circumstances in which these documents are most likely to be needed.
You may be hospitalized.
You may be incapacitated.
You may have died.
Those are terrible times for your family to discover that the only person who knows the combination to the safe is you. Or, even worse, that the Power of Attorney someone needs in order to help you is locked somewhere that person cannot access. A perfectly protected document that nobody can reach is not doing your family much good.
Your Estate Plan Needs to Be Protected, But It Also Needs to Be Usable & Immediately Accessible
Estate planning is not really about creating a beautiful binder and putting it somewhere “safe.” It is about making sure the people you trust can step in when you cannot.
That means your plan should answer some very practical questions:
- Does your family know where your original Will is?
- Do they have access to electronic copies? Have you given them access? Are they stored in the cloud, an online vault, or only on a flash drive in your binder?
- Does someone besides you have access to the place where your documents are stored?
- Does your estate planning attorney retain electronic copies?
- Does your attorney know whom you authorize them to speak with if you cannot communicate?
- Would your family know which attorney to call if your documents were damaged or destroyed?
- If your home is owned by your trust, does your homeowners insurance properly reflect the trust?
- Is your insurance coverage sufficient based on what it would actually cost to repair or rebuild your home today?
- Have you reviewed your plan recently enough that the documents on file still reflect your wishes?
Those questions may matter far more than whether your estate planning binder is stored on the perfect shelf.
We Prepare for the Things We Hope Never Happen
Nobody creates an estate plan because they expect something terrible to happen on a Tuesday afternoon. And nobody hears a tornado siren and thinks, I wonder whether my Will is safe? You get your family somewhere safe. You grab the kids and the dog. You make sure everyone is accounted for. That is exactly why this kind of planning happens before the emergency.
The recent storms across Chicagoland have been a powerful reminder of how quickly circumstances can change. A house that was perfectly fine at noon can have a tree through its roof by dinner. A dry basement can be underwater. A neighborhood can lose electricity for days.
We cannot control the weather. But we can make sure the plans intended to protect our families are actually prepared for the unexpected. That means keeping records of your estate planning documents. It means making sure your family can access the originals they may need. It means knowing whom your attorney can speak with if you cannot speak for yourself. And if your home is owned by your trust, it means making sure the insurance intended to protect that home recognizes the trust too.
At Family Wealth & Legacy Legal Solutions, those details are part of a much larger goal:
Your estate plan should still work when life does not go according to plan.
Take Five Minutes and Check
You do not need to reorganize your entire life tonight.
Just answer four questions:
- Where is my original Will?
- Could someone I trust get to it without me?
- Does my estate planning attorney have a copy?
- If my home is in my trust, does my homeowners insurance reflect that?
If you do not like one of those answers, that is worth fixing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: If my original Will is destroyed in a storm, is my estate plan void?
A: Not necessarily. A missing original can create a legal presumption in Illinois that the Will was intentionally revoked, but that presumption can be challenged with evidence, such as a copy of the signed document and proof of what happened to your home.
Q: Does my attorney automatically keep a copy of my signed documents?
A: Not always. Recordkeeping practices vary by law firm, so it is worth directly asking your estate planning attorney whether they retain electronic copies of what you signed.
Q: Is a photocopy or scanned copy of my Will as good as the original for probate?
A: No. A copy is valuable as a record of your document, but under Illinois law it is not automatically interchangeable with the original for probate purposes.
Q: Should I keep my estate planning documents in a bank safe-deposit box?
A: Generally, only if someone you trust also has access to it and you have given the bank authorization, so your loved ones know where to go to retrieve them and can access the box in a time of crisis. Documents like your Power of Attorney or Health Care Directive need to be reachable by the people who may have to act for you, often while you are unable to act for yourself.
Q: If my home is owned by my trust, do I need to update my homeowners insurance?
A: Yes. Transferring your home into a trust changes the legal ownership, and your insurance policy should reflect that, typically by adding the trust as an additional insured or obtaining a trust endorsement.
Ready to Make Sure Your Plan Will Work When Your Family Needs It?
At Family Wealth & Legacy Legal Solutions (FWLLS), estate planning is not simply about preparing documents. We help families build plans designed to work in real life, including during the unexpected circumstances no one hopes to face.
If it has been a while since you reviewed your estate plan, or you are not sure what would happen if your original documents were lost or destroyed, a Family Wealth Strategy Session™ is a good place to start.
You can schedule your Family Wealth Strategy Session™ at fwlls.com/book-a-call/.
Have you ever thought about what would happen to your important documents in a tornado, flood or fire? Share this article with someone who may need the reminder.
About Oak Brook Estate Planning Attorney Michael Biederstadt
Michael Biederstadt founded Family, Wealth & Legacy Legal Solutions with one mission: to keep DuPage County families out of court and out of conflict—and to protect them from life’s most common legal problems: death, disability, and divorce.
Michael’s approach is unique because he addresses the intersection of estate planning and family law, ensuring that a client’s legal strategy protects both their assets and their family dynamics. For nearly two decades of practice in the Chicagoland area—beginning in 2007 and expanding through his firm FWLLS, founded in 2023—he has seen firsthand how a lack of integrated planning can unravel even the best intentions.
At FWLLS, Michael leads a comprehensive four-meeting planning process that puts education first. This ensures clients make informed decisions today while benefiting from ongoing three-year review meetings to keep their plans current as their lives evolve. FWLLS works alongside each client’s financial and tax advisors to build a coordinated strategy, not just a set of documents.
FWLLS is located at 17W635 Butterfield Road, Suite 318, in Oakbrook Terrace, serving families throughout Oak Brook, Naperville, Downers Grove, and all of DuPage County. To start the conversation, book a free 15-minute introductory call at fwlls.com/book-a-call or call (630) 233-4223.
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This article is a service of Family, Wealth & Legacy Legal Solutions (FWLLS). At FWLLS, we do not just draft documents — we ensure you make educated, informed, and empowered decisions for yourself and the people you love.