Part 4: Preparing for Retirement - Who would handle your finances if you couldn't?

I have had excellent role models for this part of retirement planning. My parent's took the time and effort to make sure both my brother and I have powers of attorney and health care power of attorney. Still, when my father was close to death we discovered there were some gaps in the legal authority to handle financial matters and had to have their attorney come to the hospital with documents for him to sign. We also had to change how the bank and investment firm listed ownership of /access to accounts. Not too bad to take care of because my mother was, and still is, living. We think we have done the legal paperwork our children would need to have to take over our finances but probably should get some legal advice as we did it all 15 years ago when we moved to the state we currently live in. I do update a list of all of our accounts including insurance annually and send it to the designated executors of our estate. With online accounts and no paper trail in many cases this becomes even more important.

My parents also spent the last few years of my Dad's life showing us all of their financial records so we would be very familiar with it. We made lists of accounts, credit cards, etc. and make sure everything was easy to find in their files. That led to getting updated copies of their trust and other legal documents. We still review things for my Mom although she is fully capable of and does handle her own finances at 92.

These are hard things to talk about and to take care of especially if your family is dispersed around the country as ours is. My brother has it even worse because one of his sons lives overseas. Yet it is important.

Have you and your spouse if you have one addressed these issues for yourselves and kept them up to date? Are you open with information that the designated persons would need to take over?