An estate includes everything that you own. One's estate can include bank accounts and CDs, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, limited partnership interests and other portfolio assets, death benefits from life insurance, real estate equity, your portion of joint tenancy assets, IRA and other qualified plan assets and so on. This does not mean all of your assets will need to go through the Probate process as some of your assets may pass directly to a beneficiary without the need for probate and the expenses associated with probate.