Do you have a continuity plan ?

[fox1]

This weekend a coworker had a massive heart attack and passed away at a very young age. He has a wife and 2 teenage children. This man will be greatly missed.
He was a very responsible man and had life insurance and the family will be ok financially for the short term. What he didn't have was a plan of what to do in case of his death.
He paid the bills and didn't keep a book of who to pay and when. I think alot of that is just bad communication skills and alot is the fact that he died at the age of 48 and probably wasn't really dialed in on thinking about his own death.
His wife knows that he had a will but doesn't know where it is.
I have seen this happen more than once and instead of the surviving spouse being able to focus on the kids and the grieving process they are forced to run around for weeks trying to keep the house running in an orderly fashion.
My wife and i have planned as much as we can so that its not an undo burden if one of us passes. I keep a lock box at the house and she knows if i dont make it that she is to immediately get that box.
She pays all of the bills and keeps a pretty extensive book with all of our obligations with running figures and pay dates. We both have access to all of our accounts and we are both named for POD. Most of my stuff is in a trust now so we don't worry much about a will.
I tend to overthink things and over-plan but it makes me feel better. What do you guys do ?

[mudcatz71]

Well me and my wife are to set down and go over all of this as soon as things slow down. We have been learning the hard way the last couple months. My family was not prepared to make matters worse their whole house was destroyed as well as all records that they kept. It was a real headache. My father never registered with the county after he got out of the service and luckily I was able to get his SSN# from a bank to take care of military honors and get a copy of his DD214. Then track down insurance company's threw bank account auto withdraws. He had a truck financed in his name only. I have been making sure payment are still maid and am about to learn how to deal with that. There are still some insurance policy's I'm trying to track down. The folks that have me the most trouble was dish network all of their equipment was destroyed still not found. It was hard to make them middle easterners understand what happened. I thought I had it taking care of till yesterday ups delivers two boxes asking for me to return the receivers or pay 800 for replacement value. Lol two more hours getting bounce around and finally had to explain to them that the tornado hitting the house was like driving a mother freaking bomb into their house. Sorry for my rant but yes very important topic you brought up. I may also add big gun safes are worth their price. Dad didn't have one.

[txjustin]

This is good advice and something Ive been meaning to do.

I have about $750k term life insurance, which will cover my wife's needs in the event that I unexpectedly pass away.

I need to write down all the bills I take care of and their usernames and passwords so she can take that over in case of the above.

[bowhunterchris]

If my wife was to suddenly pass away I would not know how/where/when to pay the bills. She does all that.

[LWR2]

So I have lived through this......

My advise is to make this plan as clear a water and communicate and then communicate some more.

It took almost a whole year after my father passed to get all of his matters squared away!

LWR2

[Codie]

I do all of the bill paying, but I also have a monthly budget typed up with the contact numbers and username/passwords listed for each acct that is paid monthly. There is plenty of life insurance in place to pay off all of our monthly debts and provide a replacement of my income and pay for the boys college educations if something was to happen to me.

[fox1]

If my wife was to suddenly pass away I would not know how/where/when to pay the bills. She does all that.

Now is the time to sit down and have her show you those things.

[DJM]

All our bills are paid through our banks "Bill Pay".We both have access to it and only one password to remember.

DJ