Preparing for the end

When we were first married, our family finances were relatively simple, and something that my wife and I dealt with together. As the years went by, our financial picture became a bit more complex, and I assumed the lion’s share of paying the bills and managing our accounts. When it was still just the two of us, we didn’t give much thought to the complexities that would arise if one of us was suddenly out of the picture (although we should have). But when children came along, we knew we had to get serious.

With the help of a good estate lawyer, we established both a will and a living trust. In one sense the process was relatively simple: Our lawyer presented us with various possible scenarios and recorded how we wanted things to go in each case. But facing those scenarios head-on, and deciding how things should play out, was not so simple. In particular, deciding who should raise our young children in the event that something happened to both of us took a great deal of careful thought. Once we had named an appropriate individual (my wife’s sister), on a suggestion from our lawyer we assigned the management of our financial assets on the behalf of our children to a separate individual (in our case, my older brother); in that way, people from both my and my wife’s families would work together for the benefit of our kids.

We set all that up when our children were young. But now they are adults, meaning some portions of those legal documents — such as who would raise them in our absence — are no longer relevant. Too, our financial picture has changed. Accordingly, we are in the process of adjusting our documents.

Although our big picture stuff is in fairly good shape, it’s the smaller stuff — ensuring that bills get paid, managing our retirement income and accounts — that our friend’s recent passing has me thinking about. For instance, if my wife suddenly had to take over, would she be able to take the reins? Does she know where all of our retirement funds are located, and how much is in each? What about bills that today come into my inbox, but not into hers?

We’ve gone through my process on one or two occasions, but my wife acknowledges that what I showed her really didn’t sink in. Fortunately, she does have logins for our bank accounts and, perhaps more importantly, she knows how to log in to my computer, where she would not only have access to my email account (and thus any bills or bank notices that are normally sent just to me) but would also have access to my password manager, giving her the ability to log in to anything I can log in to. I expect she would eventually take control and develop her own system, but by enabling her to act as me, she’d be able to make that switch slowly and at a time when she is truly ready.

From what our friend’s wife has told me, her husband also managed their financial life, and didn’t spent much time explaining his own management process to her. But he did have a system, and files that she has access to, so I’m hoping that when we get together she’ll have begun to establish some measure of control.

Our friend’s sudden passing should serve as a reminder to us all that none of us have control over the time and means of our death. Accordingly, we should all take time to ensure that, should the worst actually occur, our loved ones are taken care of and don’t find themselves struggling to perform tasks that only you do today.