Courts in Florida and Kentucky have concluded that bankruptcy laws that protect an IRA from creditors do not apply to inherited IRAs.  An inherited IRA is just what it sounds like, an IRA established by someone else that you inherited when the original participant died.  While the participant's IRA is often protected in the event of bankruptcy, there appears to be a trend against allowing those same protections for inherited IRAs.  The inherited IRA can still be protected if the IRA is left to a trust rather than an individual.  The individual may have similar access to the IRA from the trust.  The IRA can still be "stretched out" so that it need not be subject to immediate income taxation (or even full taxation within 5 years).   The real benefit in the trust is that it offers better asset protection than an inherited IRA that isn't in the trust.  That's why I counsel clients to consider leaving their financial legacy in the form of a lifetime protective trust and naming the trust as the beneficiary of their IRA.  If you're interested in our white papers on either lifetime protective trusts or naming the trust as a beneficiary of an IRA, contact me and I'll shoot one over.