Many practitioners are unaware of the use of bypass trusts for married couples for purposes other than estate tax avoidance.  A well-crafted bypass trust is able to avoid depletion of the decedent's estate by the surviving spouse in a number of instances.  Among those are nursing home expenses and spenddown.  A surviving spouse's liability for tort or contract cannot affect the bypass trust of the decedent.  This technique is not limited to use by the very wealthy---it protects estates for any citizens who wish to assure that their heirs receive their inheritance, rather than having the funds spent on government reimbursement for services, or on judgment creditors.