Free Guide · Florida Asset Protection
The Florida Exemption Claims Guideline
Which claim are you actually protected from?
Florida protects a great deal of property from creditors. It does not protect the same property from every claim.
Run one retirement account past a judgment creditor, a divorcing spouse, and a Medicaid caseworker, and you can get three different answers about the same dollars — because those are three different tests, written in three different places, for three different purposes.
“Is it protected?” is the wrong question. The question is: protected from whom?
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Get The Florida Exemption Claims Guideline
Fifteen questions and a three-test comparison table that tell you, in about ten minutes, which claim each of your protections actually answers. Enter your details and the guide is sent straight to your inbox.
Three tests, one asset
Test one
The judgment creditor
The test most plans are built around — and the only one most owners have ever run.
Test two
A spouse, by divorce or death
A different body of law entirely, and one that reaches accounts no creditor can touch.
Test three
Medicaid eligibility
Federal rules on a separate timetable. An exemption from creditors is not an eligibility rule.
What is inside the guide
- A 15-question scored diagnostic. Two sections, each question tied to the authority that governs it.
- The three-test comparison table. Five asset types read across all three columns, with the authorities named in every cell.
- Your Exposure Rating. Three bands, with the fixes in the order the free ones come first.
- A plain-English glossary. Tax-qualified funds, the two carve-outs, QDROs, the elective share, look-back periods, remainder beneficiaries, and estate recovery.
Three of the fifteen questions
- Can you name, for each major asset, which specific claim its exemption actually answers?
- Did you buy an annuity because someone called it “protected from creditors,” without asking what it does to Medicaid eligibility?
- Do you have a revocable trust you signed but never retitled assets into?
The other twelve cover which Internal Revenue Code section each retirement account sits under, what a QDRO and an elective share would reach, where an annuity has to name the State, how a 60-month look-back is measured, Florida estate recovery and its survivor exceptions, and the basis step-up you give up by gifting appreciated property now. Download the guide to work through all fifteen.
Who this is for
Florida business owners and real estate investors who have been told their structure is protected and never asked protected from what; anyone who bought an annuity on a creditor-protection pitch; couples whose whole plan runs through one spouse's retirement accounts; families looking at a long-term care event inside five years; and anyone holding a revocable trust they signed but may never have funded.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't my retirement account simply exempt in Florida?
From a judgment creditor, if the fund is tax-qualified under one of the Internal Revenue Code sections Fla. Stat. § 222.21(2)(a) lists. But subsection (2)(d) withholds that same exemption from an alternate payee under a qualified domestic relations order and from a surviving spouse's elective share claim. The account no judgment creditor can touch is reachable by those two.
I bought an annuity because it was protected from creditors. Is that enough?
Creditor protection and Medicaid eligibility are different questions with different answers. Fla. Stat. § 222.14 exempts annuity proceeds from creditors of the annuitant unless the contract was effected for that creditor's benefit, while 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c)(1)(F) treats the purchase as a transfer for less than fair market value unless the State is named remainder beneficiary in the position the statute requires. Both can be true of the same contract.
I have a revocable trust. Doesn't that handle it?
Only for what is actually titled in it. A trust controls nothing it does not hold, so an asset still in your own name answers to whatever rules govern that asset in your own name. Funding is confirmed from the deed, the certificate of title and the account registration, not from the schedule stapled to the back of the trust.
Free Download
The Florida Exemption Claims Guideline
Fifteen questions, the three-test table, and an Exposure Rating — so you find out which test you have never run before a claim arrives.
Download the GuideComplimentary Discovery Call
Not Sure Where to Get Started?
Book a free 15-minute Discovery Call with our Legal Solutions Coordinators. Bring any annuity contract, the signature pages of your trust, the deeds and account registrations for what you believe the trust holds, and a list of gifts made in the last five years. Prefer the phone? Call 844-842-2774.
Book a Free Discovery CallThis page and the guide it offers are for educational purposes only and do not constitute legal or tax advice. Reading or downloading it does not create an attorney-client relationship; no such relationship exists until a written engagement agreement is signed by both you and the firm. Joseph E. Seagle is licensed to practice law in Florida only, and nothing here is offered as, or should be relied on as, legal advice in or about the law of any other jurisdiction. The state authority discussed is Florida law — Fla. Stat. § 222.21(2)(a) and (2)(d), § 222.14, § 409.9101, chapter 732, part II, and Art. X, Sec. 4 of the Florida Constitution — and exemption statutes differ materially from state to state. The federal provisions discussed are 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c)(1)(B)(i) and § 1396p(c)(1)(F); they are administered through agency rules and procedures this guide does not address, and it does not state how any asset is counted for Medicaid eligibility. Whether a particular account is tax-qualified under one of the listed Internal Revenue Code sections, whether a particular policy or contract was effected for a creditor's benefit, whether a particular parcel is protected homestead, and whether a particular transfer falls inside a look-back are all fact questions this guide cannot evaluate. Tax points are stated generally and are not advice on your return; discuss them with your CPA. Nothing here is a prediction about any particular matter, and no client names, matters or facts appear anywhere in it. A diagnostic checklist is not a substitute for having counsel review your actual contracts, deeds, account registrations and trust. Consult a licensed Florida attorney about your specific situation.