Special Needs Planning · Washington
Special needs financial planning in Washington
Our farthest client lives in Bellingham, Washington, about as far from Baltimore as the continental map allows, and the planning works exactly the same. Registered in Washington, meetings over video, time zones respected.
Washington families deal with the same federal architecture as everyone else: the SSI resource limit, ABLE account protections, and the first-party versus third-party trust distinction that determines whether Medicaid gets paid back later.
What we add from three time zones away is the discipline: the pre-18 asset audit, the trust that actually gets funded instead of framed, life insurance sized to the real support need, and a parent retirement plan that doesn't quietly get sacrificed along the way.
Washington's ABLE program: Washington State ABLE Savings Plan
Washington's ABLE plan is straightforward and competitively priced. With no state income tax in Washington, there's no deduction to chase, so the choice among state programs comes down to fees, investments, and features.
Written by Colin Meeks, CFP® · Registered to serve Washington residents · Last updated August 6, 2026
The guides Washington families use most
ABLE Accounts→
The $2,000 SSI resource limit puts families in a straitjacket: help your adult child save, and you can cost them their benefits. ABLE accounts exist to cut that knot.
Special Needs Trusts→
A trust is how grandparents leave an inheritance, how life insurance pays out, and how larger money supports your child for decades, all without touching benefit eligibility. It's also the document most families get drafted and then never actually fund.
Turning 18→
Nothing about your child changes on their 18th birthday. Everything about the rules does. Families who start at 16 or 17 walk through this calmly. Families who start at 18 spend a year untangling.
Common questions from Washington families
Comfortably. We schedule meetings in your afternoon, our early evening, and everything else is asynchronous anyway: documents, checklists, and account work don't care about time zones. Our Bellingham family would tell you the distance stopped mattering after the first call.
The first call works the same from Washington.
Fifteen minutes, complimentary, over video or phone. Tell us your situation and we'll tell you honestly whether we can help.
Prefer the phone? Call 410-663-0700 and ask for Colin.