THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM IS that trusts are only for the most affluent families, and that they’re designed to shield assets from estate taxes or implement complicated wealth-transfer strategies. Simply put, these are myths.

“The misconception with trusts is that they are only used by folks who are ultra-wealthy,” says Jennifer F. Galvagna, managing director, head of Trusts, Estates and Tax at Bank of America. “There are many reasons to use trusts beyond minimizing taxes. One of the most important is giving you a say in how your hard-earned wealth will be used over the coming generations.”

One common fallacy is that once you’ve set up a trust, you’ve essentially given away any role in managing its assets. Another is that trusts are permitted to invest only in the most conservative asset classes. “It seems like everyone has heard a bad story about trusts,” says Courtney Kelch, managing director and a senior trust officer at Bank of America Private Bank in Houston. “But if your trust is set up correctly, you can avoid problems.”

But perhaps the most prevalent mistaken belief is that trusts are cumbersome and difficult to understand. “People see trusts as coming with significant complexity. They can be complicated,” Galvagna says, “but they don’t have to be.”

Here are five ways a trust can play an important role in your planning.

1. Plan for coming generations

Adding a trust to your estate plans can help as you look to protect your family’s future  — while also allowing you to maintain some control. “People like the idea of having a say into how their hard-earned wealth will be used across generations,” Galvagna says, “and a trust can help with that.” When you establish a trust to benefit your heirs, you can set parameters for distributions, limiting them to certain uses such as education, health and housing, or age milestones.

In addition, a trust can offer valuable protections from potential lawsuits, creditors, divorces, transfer taxes and those who might prey on the wealthy. Galvagna recalls the story of a private equity firm owner in the Midwest who hesitated to set up a trust for years, largely because she didn’t want to relinquish control of the assets. She was finally convinced that a trust could benefit her children and grandchildren by removing assets from her estate while at the same time reducing her family’s exposure to certain future risks.

She was able to choose exactly which assets to transfer into the trust — those she thought would appreciate the most — and in doing so created more wealth for the trust beneficiaries than she expected, says Galvagna. “There was so much appreciation that she almost started second-guessing herself, suggesting, ‘Did I just leave them with too much?’”

2. Prepare for potential future health needs

Trusts can be valuable within your lifetime as well. By transferring assets to a revocable trust — also called a living trust — you remain the owner of the assets and can continue to manage them. But if you experience health problems or any form of incapacity, a trustee you’ve named can step in and manage your finances. “With a revocable trust, you can draw a roadmap for how you want your wealth managed,” Galvagna says.

You can dissolve or change this type of trust, adding or withdrawing assets at any time. Upon your death, your successor trustee can distribute the assets in the trust to your beneficiaries according to the terms in your trust document.

3. Enjoy business succession — on your terms

After spending years building their manufacturing firm from a scrappy regional supplier to a national presence, a pair of equal business partners in the Mid-Atlantic knew they would have to start planning for their own retirement and their privately held company’s future. But selling the business would not only result in a big tax bill, but also likely leave them each with an estate subject to sizable estate taxes.

However, as Galvagna notes, “Trusts can offer many ways to smooth business succession and sale planning, while often minimizing the impact of a taxable event.” With the help of Bank of America Private Bank, the partners worked with their attorneys to establish family trusts. Then each partner transferred 30% of the company into his family’s trust, paying gift tax on the appraised value of the transfer. When the partners sold three years ago, the final price ended up being far more than what the company had been appraised at six years earlier. Much of that substantial upside went to the family trusts without additional tax, Galvagna says.

4. Plan for family members with special needs

Kelch recalls a couple whose daughter suffered a stroke as a young adult. After she stabilized, it became clear that she’d have disabilities that would require ongoing assistance. Although she wasn’t completely incapacitated, her future wellness and ability to take care of herself were far from certain.

The parents, of course, worried about her care. While their estate plan already left substantial assets to the daughter, they decided to establish a trust to help ensure that her inheritance would pay for her physical needs. The trust made provisions for a home caregiver as well as covering her continuing medical expenses. It also set aside funds in case she developed additional health issues. After the parents died, a cousin took over as co-trustee of the trust — and now works closely with Bank of America to ensure that the daughter will have everything she needs.

“In this case, the parents were able to feel confident that their daughter was going to be taken care of financially,” says Kelch. Because trusts are adaptable, they can be tailored to work for most individual health needs, including difficult situations involving cognitive decline.

5. Manage blended families

Today’s families come in a variety of configurations. People divorce and remarry. Adult children from a first marriage have different financial needs than second spouses or young children from a second marriage. Complications can set in quickly if significant assets are involved, and an estate plan may have to provide different things for different beneficiaries at different stages in their lives. A trust could help with this by, say, allowing your second wife to benefit from trust income during her life, with the principal reverting to your children from your first marriage upon her death.

Similarly, a trust can be structured to make disbursements only when certain milestones are reached — graduating from college, say, or reaching a certain age. A “spendthrift trust” could protect a beneficiary from their own worst instincts while preserving assets for future generations.

These are just some of the ways trusts can help you protect against unexpected family circumstances, while ensuring that your own goals for your legacy remain in place.