Many of you know and have had the pleasure of working with my executive assistant, Maryanne Hall. Maryanne (by trade) is a planner. While she is not a financial advisor, in her day-to-day role, she gathers data and helps to build retirement plans. She is organized, thorough, and is an excellent problem solver. Maryanne recently lost her father when he suddenly passed away. Maryanne asked that I share her story with you today to help you plan better for your heirs.
Trying to navigate the inheritance claims process while dealing with the loss of her father has been a challenge. When Maryanne received the call from her mom that her father had passed, she jumped into action. In addition to planning funeral arrangements and helping her mom, Maryanne began navigating the inheritance claims process.
She soon learned that her father, who was a private man, unintentionally left his family with a bit of a scavenger hunt. Without having computer passwords and passcodes for his phone, Maryanne has been left with the daunting task of calling various banks and life insurance companies to try to piece together where her dad had assets.
Losing a loved one is extremely difficult and at FPS we want to try to ease this burden for your heirs by helping you build a plan today. While some choose to buy organizers or books like “I’m Dead, Now What?”it is important to leave a guide book for your loved ones to follow. This guide outlines your wishes, passwords to things such as emails, social media, laptops, cell phones, as well as account information such as banks, life insurance policies and retirement plans.
The steps outlined below can serve as a guide on things you can do for after-life planning:
- Name beneficiaries on your accounts:
a. Investment Accounts: Each year we review your beneficiaries with you during your annual meeting. This is extremely important because once you pass away, these assets will be transferred to the person that you chose. We need to make sure we have updated contact information, as well as a birth date for these individuals. If you have named any charities as beneficiaries, we want to confirm if you have any specific instructions for those bequests on where those monies are to be donated within the organization (i.e. The Building Fund or The Endowment Fund, etc.)
b. Retirement Accounts: Always check your plan at work or any former employer retirement plans to make sure that you have beneficiaries named. Often, when people get married, they forget to take this step and add a spouse or make changes to add your trust as a contingent beneficiary after creating an estate plan.
c. Bank Accounts: Did you know that if you are an Indiana resident and you pass away with more than $50,000 in a bank account with no named beneficiaries, then your heirs would need to go through the probate process? This can be time-consuming and expensive. By naming a beneficiary these assets would directly pass to your heirs upon your passing.
d. Life Insurance: Please check your life insurance policies and update your beneficiaries. This includes any employer policies that you may have as well.
e. Vehicles: In the state of Indiana, you can name a beneficiary for your vehicle through the BMV. Each state differs in their requirements so please check with your state’s bureau of motor vehicles or department of transportation for more information. https://www.in.gov/bmv/titles/transfer-on-death.
f. Real Estate and personal property: In Indiana you can use a transfer on death deed (TOD) (also known as a Quitclaim Deed) to name a beneficiary on your home and personal property. You can also name a trust or a last will and testament. (Please be mindful that a last will and testament will typically require the probate process. Discuss this with your estate planning attorney)
- Create a list of all of your usernames and passwords for things such as:
a. Computers, iPads and Cell Phones (these often provide your heirs with information they will need and access to other important files such as family photos, music, tax information, and much more).
b. Credit Cards (online access ID & PW – if you do not use the online services, be sure to outline the cards you do have so your heirs can close those)
c. Utilities (online access to Gas, Electric, Sewer, Internet, Phone, etc. if these are set up on automatic payments, they can update that)
d. Social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, etc. so that they can shut those down)
e. Emails (so that they can track important items they may need access to when going through the inheritance claims process and can eventually shut those down)
e. Subscription services (streaming such as Netflix or stores such as Costo or Amazon so they can cancel those)
f. IMPORTANT: Keep all of this information in a safe and secure place and be sure that your family knows where they can find it.
If you use your access to the FPS Client Portal, you can save this information into a folder within your Vault which has 256bit encryption. Our office only has access to the “shared” folder in your vault, so your information is completely private.
This is a safe and secure option for you to store your confidential information as opposed to leaving a password book lying around where someone could find it.
If you have never used your client portal before or need to learn more about how to use it please follow these instructions (insert instructions here)
3. Have a current net worth statement:
a. This would include the location where you have your assets and include the names of banks, investment and insurance companies and pensions.
b. FPS does this for each of our clients and provides you with the tools to have your own personal client portal where you can link your accounts and add each of these assets.
- Leave a plan for your last requests that detail your preferences.
a. Would you like to be buried? Cremated? Donated to science? By having this plan in place, it takes the guesswork out of trying to figure out your wishes while grieving your loss.
Did you already plan and pay for your end-of-life services? If so, provide the details of the funeral home or mortuary that you have your plan through.
b. If you work with an estate planning attorney, they can help you think through and draft these documents.
How FPS helps:
- When we are notified that a client passes away, Lara and Amber from our claims team work closely with their beneficiaries to transfer assets into their names.
- If the client has provided a list of their assets as part of the annual review meeting, we are able to work with family members to make sure that nothing is missed.
- Once the claims are complete, our advisors meet with each of these beneficiaries to help them make a plan for how they would like to use these assets to help them achieve their goals.
Losing a loved one is extremely difficult and we are here to help and make this process easier. Please take the time to make an afterlife plan to help ease this burden on your heirs and make sure that your wishes are honored.
If you have any questions or if you would like to update or make changes to your beneficiaries, please give our office a call at 317-882-7675.
Please use this link that will take you to the Information Center on the Resources Tab of the FPS website. You will see the brochure: Checklist for When I Am Gone. When you click on the brochure a window will open asking you if you would like to open the file. You can then download or print the checklist.