My cousin Amy’s husband unexpectedly died two weeks ago.
He was 45 and they have two daughters who are 14 and 15.
Amy has learned A LOT in the last two weeks.
We all have.
And there’s one very important lesson I’d like to pass along to you so you can make sure you don’t find yourself in the same situation should, God forbid, something like this ever happen to your family.
There have been a bunch of questions from people like Why didn’t they do this??? and Why didn’t they do that??? and They should receive insurance money right away and This isn’t adding up….
I had some questions about this stuff also because I didn’t know all the details, but I didn’t grill my cousins about it.
I just asked what we needed to do immediately to get Amy and the girls to a safe place, and once the dust started to settle a little I asked Melissa a couple questions.
Melissa (Amy’s sister and a full-time ER nurse) was told to expect 60-90 days for the autopsy results and death certificate due to the system being “backlogged.”
So it will be 2-3 months before they receive a death certificate, and then paperwork will have to be processed for Social Security and before they can close accounts with Mike’s name on them.
So it will be a while before that takes effect.
What about life insurance?
Amy and Mike never discussed the specifics of his life insurance policy, so she had no idea how much it was for.
She learned after he died that Mike had a $5,000 policy, which is much less than what Amy believed it to be.
But the bigger problem is there is no beneficiary listed on the policy.
Amy was also unaware of this.
Without Amy being listed as the beneficiary on the insurance policy, things become much trickier, and she may need to go to probate court.
We are figuring that stuff out over the next week – looking into talking to an expert (if anybody knows anyone let me know!) who can really give solid guidance and advice.
You never think you’ll find yourself in a situation like this, but you never know.
If something unthinkable happened tomorrow, could you answer these questions?
Does your spouse have a life insurance policy?
Do you know how much it’s for?
Do you know who the beneficiary on the policy is?
If not, find out the answers to these questions ASAP!
This is one way Amy is able to give back to you right now – she is teaching us, and she’s going to help A LOT of women by sharing her struggles.
I just started volunteering with Wings for Widows which helps the newly widowed navigate through exactly what you are talking about. I suggest she looking into this non-profit and a CFP volunteer could guide her (virtually) through a lot of this too!
From experience (parent not spouse) keep a bank account open with his name on it for at least a year (we opted for 2) because you can have a random check show up made out to him well after he died (or an IRS refund which they love to make out to both spouses) The manager of the bank advised us to not close it when we went to go and close it.
We got a check from the medical insurance company (for something my dad had been fighting before his death) 1.5 years after he died made out to him. Had we not had his checking account (which my sister was also on) still with his name on it, we would not have been able to deposit the check.
TLDR: don’t take his name off the bank account right away. Wait a while.
No matter how old you are, you should take care of this stuff NOW. Everything we own (houses, bank accounts, vehicles, investment/retirement accts, etc) is in the name of our trust, with both of us as trustees. This also prevents you from having to go to probate to get things straightened out. We also have durable power of attorney’s, and living wills. It is well worth the money you’ll spend on a lawyer who specializes in trusts and wills. We’ve been self-employed our whole life, so instead of wasting money on term life insurance, that money has been invested also.