How do you bring order to chaos? “Help me prepare” is a cry from many who are overwhelmed by their to-do list when a family member gets incapacitated or dies.
I’ll be talking about some of the things to consider as we prepare for that eventuality. The fact is that no matter how much we prepare, it can still be overwhelming.
So, why not get ahead of the game and prepare as much as possible.
The purpose of the Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast is to educate and empower people so they maximize their money superpower and increase their money IQ.
The goal is hope through sharing of Lessons Learned, Practical Tips, Realistic Strategies and Workable Solutions that lead to financial freedom.
Dr. Sev encourages people to take control of their finances with a practical plan that’s tailored to their specific needs so they can reach their own financial goals.
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Podcast Transcript
Dr. Sev
Today’s topic is being prepared in the event of death or incapacitation of our loved ones. This is not a fun topic, but it’s necessary. Before I get started into the material, I want to remind everyone that this is educational in nature, it is not advice. So if you are needing advice that is specific to your situation, please speak to your financial counselor, financial coach or financial planner. And in fact, with this topic, you may want to talk to a financial planner, or a lawyer who handles estates.
All right, so let’s jump right in. Eat the frog, eat the frog. What does that mean? That means there are some things that we have to prioritize even though it makes us uncomfortable. And this is one of those topics, right? If we care anything about those we leave behind, we have to do this. Really, we have to. It’s not a fun thing to do. But it’s a necessary thing to do.
Dr. Sev
Think about Prince. The mess he left behind by not having a will or not having an estate in order, Jimi Hendrix did not leave a will and settling his estate dragged on for 30 years. Can you imagine how much the lawyers made from his estate for 30 years all because he didn’t do a simple thing like putting together a will and some other things to protect his assets. And to tell everyone who we wanted to inherit his estate, Bob Marley passed away with no ill nothing in place. And even though he had cancer, and he had, he lived eight months after he discovered the cancer, he did not put anything in place. And so lawyers enjoy that. Sorry to say lawyers, because they are reaping the benefit of these people not having their plans together. Now you and I don’t have big estates like that. But we do have an estate, if you own anything at all. You have an estate, and you have to protect it, I’m sure you’ve heard of people who have fought over, somebody died, Big Momma died, and somebody fought over her TV, somebody fought over some heirloom that she had. So whatever it is that we have, we need to put it in writing in some way to let somebody know who we want to get that assets. Agenda is not a fun thing to do. But it’s necessary to do and if we care about the people behind us, we care about our children, especially those with special needs kids, and those with minors, you have to put some of these things in place in order to protect them.
Dr. Sev
So what I was going to talk about this week, I was going to talk about ways to save money on groceries. But I had a sudden death in my family. And because of that I started thinking about these things. Do they have these things in place? Do I have enough of this in place to protect my assets in the event I were to die, or in the event I would have a stroke or something and I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t tell anyone my wishes.
This list that I’m going to give you is not exhaustive. But it is meant to start a conversation, it is meant to start a conversation with your lawyer with your financial advisor, it is meant to start the conversation with them. And as I go through the list, I would ask that you make notes come back, listen to the YouTube and podcasts, listen, make notes of all the things I’m going to be talking about. And if you don’t have them in place, make a list and then take that to your lawyer or to your personal finance planner, so that they can help you cement what the plans are that you need to put in place to make sure your family is protected.
Dr. Sev
So one of the easiest things to put together well, I say easier. But you know, it’s a well as simple will that dictates who get your assets, who distributes your assets, who takes care of your minor children, if anything were to happen. Did you remarry? If you remarried, did your spouse pass away and then you remarried? Did you put plans in place to ensure that any assets you have will take care of your kids because there are cases upon cases upon cases in the US and other parts of the world where somebody remarried, and they still have the old spouse’s information on there, the now the new spouse, you have kids with them, and they are left out in the cold because you never changed your documents. So put together a will if you have a change in circumstances, change in your life circumstances put together a will. And again, it’s very easy to do depending on the complexity of your estate, to say what you want to have happen for your funeral that for me, just cremate me so my daughter can enjoy the fruits of my labor. Okay, don’t have any fancy funeral. I don’t care about all of that. But somebody else may want a fancy funeral. They may want all of that. So you have to clearly say what you want in your will.
Dr. Sev
The other thing to consider is a power of attorney, what a power of attorney one of the benefits of that is, you get quick access to your information. So let’s say you had a stroke, and you are not able to articulate what it is that you want, how that person having the power of attorney will already know that you don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to live if your life it seems like your life is not going to have quality that you didn’t want to you want to be taken off the ventilator or whatever, so that they have quick access to your information, access to your money. So if you have minor children, for example, they can take care of the children, if they need medications, they can do that. They can take care of all those things quickly as your estate is being processed. But they have the quick access, they’re not waiting months and months and months to get access to that information. Meanwhile, your children if you have special needs again, and if you have minor, because not only children, because you may be taking care of it on your or your parent that needs some special medication and you have responsibility for that. So you want to make sure that you have someone as your power of attorney in the event that anything like that were to happen, they can jump in and say what your will, what your will is what your desire is for those situations.
Dr. Sev
Another thing is healthcare directive. I don’t know if you remember the case, with Terry Chevelle in Florida, it dragged on and on and on. She had what they said is a heart attack. And they resuscitated her and took her to the hospital. And through years and years of battling. Well, at first they had a great relationship. Her parents and the husband had a great relationship. And then he wanted to take her off life support, because he had taken to court or her gynecologist gotten a settlement for 300,000 for him 750,000, which was put in trust to take care of her. And he wanted her after a while taken off life support. And the parents did not want that. She had nothing in writing to say that she was fairly young. So I’m sure she didn’t think that would happen. And that’s why you have to consider that and change it as an updated as life changes. But anyway, eventually he wanted her off life support, they went through all the court systems, think of how many lawyers got rich, okay, from going through that just because of not having a simple document, that would have clearly said, If anything were to happen to me. And if it is apparent that the quality of my life is not going to be the same as before, don’t keep me on life support. That’s what I have in mind. If it is apparent that I am a vegetable, and there is no way for me to be resuscitated, take me off life support, and let that money be used for those who are living, okay. So just putting that little document together would have saved them a lot of money, and a lot of time, because they got millions of dollars in a settlement. But the lawyers got most of it. So all he got the 300,000 and then several 150,000 for you know, to take care of her eventually that ran out because he was for years and years. He was in different care different, you know, processes, different things to take care of her. And eventually, of course, money runs out. So now he’s like, I don’t want to use my 300,000 Her 750s run out? Well, y’all need to take her off my support, there is no, you know, so who governs that.
Dr. Sev
And I want to talk a little bit about separation of duties in terms of money and the kinds of decisions. I mean a little bit, but just keep in mind that those simple documents can make such a difference in the way things are handled. Because if not only in your death, it could be because you are incapacitated, something may happen, to struggle to happen, you can’t speak, you can’t tell them what you want. So you have to be careful to make sure those documents are in place to help your loved ones. So they’re dealing with the stress of all the things that are happening to you. And now they have to deal with figuring out where your money is where you know where all of those things.
Dr. Sev
So before I move on, I want to check the comments to see Beverly. Hi, everyone. Sorry to hear about the death in your family. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, it was very sudden, but we’re doing okay. So one of the things I want to stress is to separate the decision making. If you have somebody you’ve given authority to make medical decisions, that person should not have authority to make financial decisions. Money causes people to act stupid. Okay. Money causes people to act stupid. So you have to separate who’s going to make decisions about your medical and make sure you look the relationships between those people are like far apart. It shouldn’t be like, you know, maybe sister and brother, make sure the relationship is far apart so that the person who is making medical decisions are going from your directives, what you have listed person who’s making financial decisions are going from your, what you have written down. But in the event that you don’t have enough details in your document, you want the relationship to be far apart so that they don’t mess up their relationship if they have one. So maybe you have a lawyer who’s making decisions or a trust that’s making a decision about your finances, where as you maybe you have a close family member, your mom or your sibling making decisions about your medical, you know, anything pertaining to your medical, but you just want to make sure that that is separated, the responsibilities are separated.
Dr. Sev
So before we continue, I want to do a quick word from our sponsor of today’s video. And then we’ll go right back into listing some other things like bank account property, social media accounts, etc. So here’s a word from our sponsor of this video.
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Dr. Sev
Okay, so Thank you Bryan, financial empowerment, LLC for sponsoring today’s video. So let’s talk about property. If you have a home, if you own a home, one of the things that you can do to make it easier on your loved one is to do what’s called a transfer on death deed. And depending on your state, you want to check with your state because of course not all things are equal in all states, check with your state to see what’s required for that. And what will happen if you did a transfer on death deed. It bypasses probate. So that lets for example, I have a transfer on death deed for my daughter, if I filed a transfer on death deed, if anything were to happen to me, if I were to pass away, the property would just go to her. And that’s in Georgia. So make sure you check with your state to see how transfer on death deed work when it comes to property. Another thing to consider is your bank account. Some of you may be maybe single, right, and you have your bank accounts, and you have nobody listed on your bank account, one of the things you want to consider is doing a what’s called a payable on death. And it’s easy to do very easy to just log into your account and select payable on that, and whoever you want to be listed as your payable on death, because what it does is speeds things up. Now you have somebody if anything were to happen to you, that person can go into your account, pull the monies to do whatever. And of course, it goes without saying it’s somebody who’s trusted. Because even when you trust people, as I said, money, cause people to act a fool. Okay. So just be careful who you are assigning these trusted positions to.
Dr. Sev
The other thing, social media accounts, I left the company several years ago, and there were three people who left that company who passed away. And in LinkedIn, you get these pop ups that say happy birthday, or you get a pop up that say, celebrating your work anniversary. And these people’s accounts keep popping up about Happy birthday, and celebrating their anniversary. And I’m sure it’s because they did not have documents in place to ensure that their loved one to shut down their accounts. So I have a list of all my accounts with passwords have been on junk drives or UPC or whatever they called those, those little things. I have it on different jump drives. And it’s password protected. And I have I’m a spreadsheet guru. So I have it on spreadsheet password protected, it’s in my safe. And it’s not one of those you can leave open and take with you password protected. So I have it in various places where if anything were to happen to me, my person who’s going to be handling my estate, can pull that list shut down on my accounts, so that I don’t have open accounts for social media, or any of those things, because you don’t know what what that person has linked their accounts to. And it could be setting them up for fraud or some other thing, right? So you want to make sure you have something with a list of all your sign on your passwords when it comes to your social media. So that in the event, you were to die, we can shut down that account or we can have somebody controlling that account.
Dr. Sev
Another thing to consider is utilities. How are they paid? Who provides your service you should have a list of that list. somewhere, so that again, if you are incapacitated, you can’t speak. Or if you pass away, I know where to go to say, hey, there’s no Power in this house, I need to shut down the light, or the power, or the gas or whatever, because nobody’s going in there anymore. So I need to shut it down because this person passed away. And if I have the death certificate, and I have the power of attorney, or any other documentation that says, I have the authority to do that, then I can get it shut down.
Insurance policies, retirement accounts, if you are divorced, again, and you remarry, and you have kids with this new person, and you still have the old person’s account number, or an old person’s name on your account, are you sure they’re going to be taking that money and making sure your kids what your new spouse is taking care of? I’m sure it’s probably not going to be that way. But we’re going to be there a few people in the world who will be honest enough to do that. I have seen too many read through personal finance, you know, epilogues, and all that. It’s not the right word, I don’t know its epilogues, whatever it is, read through these documents, right? And all the time, I see people asking, Hey, my dad passed away, but he didn’t change His will or didn’t choose, it changes life insurance, or his 401 K. And now his new wife is on there. And all of his kids, and you know, with his ex wife gets nothing. And the new wife is not willing to share or the new husband is not willing to share? These are very real possibilities. And all it takes is maybe 30 minutes of your time, please, I’m asking you 30 minutes of your time to go back through, write down all these things. So that if you especially if you’re young kids, and you know, you’ve worked hard, I work hard, okay? I want to make sure my daughter gets everything. And then depending on where she wants to distribute who she wants to bless, you can do that. But I don’t want anybody else to come in to get my hard work, except my daughter, and some other family members.
Dr. Sev
Okay, so I’m talking about insurance policies, retirement accounts, make sure your beneficiaries are updated with the new information. And you want to maybe add some more information in, in a will, that stipulates or in a trust that stipulates how you want that broken down. Because you may want to say, okay, my kids, I want to give you, you know, $10,000 When I pass away, and then every year thereafter, I’ll give you your every month thereafter, you get $500. And then when you turn 30, you get the rest of it or something to that effect, right? You don’t want to give your young kids 18,19, 20 a bulk, bulk bulk of money, you don’t want to do that.
But again, this is educational, not advice. Talk to your personal finance person.
All right. So let me check the comments. Explain why it should be separated. I’m thinking you’re probably talking about when I talk about the medical and the financial decisions, yes, it needs to be separated, because you don’t want the person. Okay, let’s say you were incapacitated. And the person making decisions about taking you off life support knows that you have a $5 million life insurance policy, that could be a conflict of interest, because they’re going to make the decision to take you off life support, knowing that there’s $5 million coming to possibly that they’re going to manage. So that could be a conflict of interest. So that’s one of the reasons why you want to separate them out. I hope that answered your question, you can go ahead and put a question in the chat a comment in the chat. If that’s not what you were talking about.
Dr. Sev
Then in Beverly Central, you have to cover yourself, you don’t want government taking anything from your family. And that’s what will happen. If you don’t have these documents in place, the government is going to step in, and we know how efficient the government is. So they’re going to step in, and they are going to decide what is what because you know, I’ve mentioned the Terri Schiavo case, it went all the way through the courts. And eventually, a judge decided that the husband was correct and pulled her off life support. So you don’t want a judge making those decisions. You want to be the one to make the decision. Again, it’s hard. It’s hard. It’s an emotional thing to make those decisions. But they need to be made to protect your assets. You’ve worked hard. You’ve worked hard. You don’t want lawyers getting your money, because if it goes through probate, we’re not likely lawyers gonna get a piece of it. Is that what you want for the lawyers to get all your money? And you know, and then your kids and other family members don’t get what it is that you would like for them to get? You have to think about that. Right?
So another thing to consider is your bills and your subscriptions. Do you have setup bills set up for auto pay? If they are set up for auto pay, you want to list which company? The payment dates and which payment method? Are you using one credit card versus another? Or is it coming directly from your savings account, your checking account, you want to list all of that because if you anything were to happen to you. And nobody knows that everything is set up AutoPay it could be a while before that is caught.
Dr. Sev
And I want to share with you a quick story about this guy named Ronald Wayne, right? He passed away. And he was in his apartment for three years before they discovered is that his mom contacted the police, his son contacted the police, because they’re saying we haven’t heard from him. He was known to travel, he was ex military. And he was working, I think, with the Department of Defense or something like that. So he traveled all over the world to do work for them. And so he was known to be out of pocket for a while. But the mom is like, he’s never missed calling me for my birthday. But he hadn’t called. And so she caught went to the police to have them, you know, check to see what’s going on. And they’re like, well, he’s an adult. And we don’t have any issue of foul play. So we can’t do anything they want us to get in the apartment, they couldn’t get into the apartment, because they didn’t have any documents to allow them to get into the apartment. Eventually, you know, even somebody down below him complained that, you know, there was some smell and liquid, we can see him down to the apartment, but the apartment complex did nothing is vehicle was parked outside. And you’d think if you are an apartment complex, and, you know, they always say give me the license plate. So they can check on your vehicle to make sure that any vehicle that’s in there, that it belongs to the residents. So you would think that somebody seeing the vehicle sitting there leaves sitting on it does accumulating will check to say, Hey, what’s going on, we need to contact this person to have them remove his vehicle or something, because it’s becoming an eyesore, nothing. And I guess because maybe the way that apartment was set up, it was still being paid out of his account for three years. Okay, he was in that apartment dead. And nobody knew. And the reason they were able to finally check on him is because he’s water, he was paying, I guess the apartment because he was bundled and fee. But the apartment complex checked on him, because there was no usage, there’s no water usage. So for three years, he was paying rent, like whatever other bills were being paid out of his account. And it because you know, there was money in the account, so nobody cared. And meanwhile, his mom and his son and daughter was trying to get every way to get access, you know, to find out what was going on with him.
Dr. Sev
So this story is just to tell you the importance of having those things in place, right? If you’re traveling, make sure somebody knows where you are, where you’re traveling to. It’s not being nosy, it’s being accountable, right? Make sure somebody knows where you are, how they can contact you, if you’re traveling, because if he had done that, then his family would know, okay, he’s not out of the country, he’s home. So something’s going on while we can’t contact him.
Okay, one of the things you want to consider is having liquid cash on hand to pay bills, you know, take care of immediate needs, you want to have the person who is going to be responsible for your money to have access to some cash right away, while everything is being sorted out. That’s to help with any expenses, especially if you have somebody again, who is a dependent young kids, minors, and anybody who maybe have a special needs, that any immediate needs are taken care of, before all of your affairs are settled.
Dr. Sev
And Audrey saying your Well, that makes so much sense to separate this responsibility and never looked at it this way. Yeah, I mean, you can read the stories, you can Google. And you can read the stories of all the issues where money turned people into fools and cause problems, because now they have this money that they’re managing for somebody. And instead of doing what’s best in the best interest of that person, the money caused them to make decisions, that is opposite of what the person wants, right? So one of the things you want to do is give copies of all of these documents to various persons, including maybe your lawyer, I don’t suggest you put it in a safety deposit box, because if you do that, it has to go through probate for them to access your safety deposit box. So if you’re going to put it in a safety deposit box, you want to make sure more than one person has a key and they’re on the account to be able to access the safety deposit box and even then you have to check with your state because there are your state requirements may vary. Depending on where you are. Your country requirements may vary depending on where you are. So you have to make sure you you check to see how somebody could access with your bank. how someone could access your safety deposit box if you choose to put your documents there, because what purpose will it serve to have all these great documents? It’s in a safety deposit box and now we have to go through probate before anybody can know what your wishes are.
Dr. Sev
Another thing you may want to consider is, if you don’t have these documents already in place, is to create an email, where as you create these documents, you have just one email for all the documents, and you let somebody know where they are, you’re not going to put your passwords and all of that in there, you just going to put correspondence related to those documents, maybe in that one email, and then the person will know, okay, this is where I need to go to find the latest on things that are not sensitive. Things that are sensitive, again, as I said, Before, you want to put it, give copies to your lawyer, give copy to the person who is going to be your power of attorney, make sure that they know where the copies are.
And, you know, a thing to consider is, if you don’t care, take care of the little things that don’t add value to your life, you’re thinking, Oh, that’s something, you know, I’m busy, I can’t do that right now. It doesn’t add value to my life. But then it takes away from the enjoyment because it’s in the back of your mind knowing that you need to do these things. And life is not promised to anyone, anybody can have a stroke or have a heart attack. Anything could happen. Anybody. Okay? So we want to make sure that we take care of these things as best as we can. And again, make a list of these things. And then take it to your lawyer, make a list of all the things that you want to get done. All the accounts that you have all the passwords, take it to your lawyer and say, Okay, this is what I have put together for my family. Here’s my family, who I want to get what is there anything I’m missing, because again, this is educational, it’s not advice. And they will be able to give you some more advice as to what it is where you need to go next. And a financial planner is probably one of your best bets too, because they deal with these things. And estate lawyer financial, we probably be able to help you with these kinds of information. Now I do have a bonus. I do have a bonus. One of the things I just read made me added this, it’s not anything to do with being prepared, but it’s something a warning.
Dr. Sev
Okay. So I just read something where this man bought a house. In a few weeks later, somebody showed up and knocks on his door to ask to see the house because you’re wanting to rent the house. Well, turns out somebody had listed the house on some website and said it’s for rent, and this person paid money for deposit, and they were coming to see the house. So here’s my advice to you, or not advice. But here’s something to consider. What you want to do is if you’re in the process of renting a house, and let’s say you’re out of state or even if your instinct, the first thing you want to do is you want to check your property deed, check the property record who is the owner of record, contract that owner to verify that the place is really being rented because people are out there, they are deceitful. They are scumbags. To put it nicely. And they will try to get money from you for property they will own it happens a lot. A lot. If you read the financial news like I do, you’ll see it happens a lot.
Okay. Other thing you want to do is report the fraud to the platform on which it’s listed. So let’s say it’s listed on Facebook marketplace, reporting to Facebook. Good luck with that, because Facebook is not very responsive. If it’s listed on Craigslist, you want to report that as fraud. So you want to check the property records, contact the owner, and then also report it as fraud on the platform where it’s listed. And whatever you do, do not send money to anybody just like that. Verify, verify, verify before you send money.
Dr. Sev
I hope this is helpful for things that you will for you to consider. And that you can take action on, come back, listen to the replay. And you know, make notes of things, some things to do. Don’t be intimidated by it, just do one thing at a time. And for those of you who are going to be listening to the podcast, do the same just take time to make a note of all the things that I’ve mentioned here. And again, this list is by no means exhaustive. It just a way I want to give you a start a head start for you to consider these things, and put those things in place for your family, for the peace of mind of your family. They’re dealing with so much your passed away, you’re dealing with your death, you’re grieving, and then they have to figure all these other things. They have to deal with the state they have to deal with lawyers for probate. Don’t make it hard on them. Let’s try to make it as easy as possible for them. Don’t be a Jimi Hendrix, don’t be a Bob Marley. Don’t be a prince. Take care of your family.
With that. This is Dr. Sam with self talks money. I hope you’ll come back next week I’ll have a guest and we are going to have a riveting discussion on things related to personal finance. And then also, if you have not been listening to the last three or four sessions, I want you to go back into the YouTube library or go to the podcast and listen to them some really great information informative discussions around your personal finance.
