Protecting Your Heirs
You’ll die someday. There should not be a shock associated with that statement, because everyone dies eventually. Since you know that your life will eventually end, there is no reason why you should not plan ahead for when it does actually happen. If you have people who rely on you, then you should absolutely have life insurance. If you have assets, you should write a will that specifies who gets what upon your death. If you have children, you need to specify who will become the legal guardians of your minor children if you meet an untimely demise. These are all concepts that are not incredibly complicated, and chances are you have already taken care of one or all of these tasks.
If you haven’t completed all these tasks, there is no time like the present. Complete all the paperwork to ensure that everything is taken care of as you want it to be after your death.
Suppose you have everything squared away: Life insurance is in place, your will is written, and you have specified who will take guardianship of your children if you pass away. What happens when you die? If you haven’t taken one more important step in this whole process, you’re going to leave a complicated mess for the people you leave behind.
What is the problem? Although you have purchased your life insurance policy, written your will and assigned a guardian for your children, you forgot to tell anyone about all this preplanning, and now your heirs are left trying to figure out if you did ever take care of these things at all.
You can go to great lengths to make sure all your bases are covered, but it will take your beneficiaries much longer to achieve closure with all the financial and legal matters associated with your death if they don’t have any idea where to find all the documentation associated with your final wishes. Do your heirs know where to find your will? Do they even know if you composed a will? Do they know what company issued your life insurance policy, or even that you have a life insurance policy? Did you speak to the people you assigned as guardians to your children prior to making this important decision? If you just chose someone and wrote it down, you can’t be sure that your wishes will be fulfilled if you never bothered to have this necessary talk with the people who you want to raise your children for you.
Your final wishes should not be a secret. Imagine the scramble your family and friends will have to go through when you die if you never told them where to find important documents pertaining to your will and other important information. In some instances, families have to hire private investigators or attorneys just to track down life insurance policies. Is this what you want for your heirs?
Make your final wishes clear and accessible. It will be hard enough for your loved ones to deal with your death -whether it’s soon or many, many years down the road- so don’t make it even harder.
