“It’s not a matter of just having money—it’s a matter of having someone who can step into your shoes and make decisions for you,” she said. “I always tell my clients, if you don’t have a plan, the government has one for you,” and probate outcomes may be unappealing. Parents of minor children should have guidelines in place, she added.
Monica Dwyer, a CFP with Harvest Financial Advisors in West Chester, Ohio, isn’t that surprised Franklin lacked a will because “none of us wants to think about our own death,” she said. Dwyer has long paid attention to ill-prepared celebrities, but the example she’s brought up recently with clients is her mother-in-law, who died without giving the family any direction about her intentions.
“We were faced with so many decisions we had to make on her behalf,” said Dwyer. “I have seen families ripped apart because they didn’t have a will or because the will was not properly written.”
It’s very powerful and motivating to see what can happen to a hypothetical couple with children when they do and don’t have the proper legal documents, she said. She helps clients ensure they have proper, updated documents in place and offers to speak with their attorneys or to refer them to an attorney.
At a minimum, she said, people should have a will from an estate attorney, trust documents (if they have a trust), a durable power of attorney for health care, a living will, an authorization to release health-care information and a power of attorney for brokerage and bank accounts. It’s also critical to let someone know where to find a list of all accounts, passwords for online accounts, stock certificates and titles for anything valuable, she said. To keep track of all this, she uses a digital archiving tool from Everplans.
“If you love your family,” said Dwyer, “provide them with a roadmap of what you want and who gets what.”