Retirement Income Blog

Help your spouse (or relative) settle your estate now - while you can!  Use this estate planning checklist for your loved ones so that they don’t need to organize a mess of information.  Don’t hesitate to ask your retirement advisor for assistance.
 
We collect and lose a lot of information about what we have. Do you know where your insurance policy, deeds, will, and all your bank accounts – just to name a few – are?  If you die, all these documents and more must be found and acted upon – or else your spouse and beneficiaries lose their benefit!  Ask your retirement advisor to maimtain a complete file for you.

Part of estate planning is getting your documents in order - the sooner the better and this estate planning checklist will help. It’ll help you recognize what titling needs to be changed. Also, settling estates can be time consuming and costly. Knowing where documents are shortens the time and helps reduce costs. Start collecting them into one place or at least constructing a list of where they are and what should be done about them. It’s also a great idea that your retirement advisors have a copy also.  Have your documents scanned and get a copy to your financial advisors.

Here’s an estate planning checklist of things to find and record their location and what to do about them:

Wills and trusts
List your executor and trustees and update where needed.  Make sure that these people have a copy of your important documents and that your beneficiaries know the identity of your executors and beneficiaries to contact.

Property deeds 
Review the titles to real property and cars and update if necessary.

Financial accounts
Identify all checking, savings, brokerage accounts, and their titling. Make sure you’ve registered “transfer on death” statements for easy transfer to your beneficiaries too.

Pension and retirement programs (pension, IRAs, 401(k), ESOP, etc)
Record all employer-sponsored programs you’re participating in. List who to contact and phone numbers. Estimate present value and the benefits each holds.

Benefits due you or your spouse
Find and list if your spouse will be due any social security, medical or other benefits as your survivor.

Tax and legal advice
Your estate tax planning should map out what passes to your spouse, and what goes to a trust with all tax consequences. You should identify who will be a suitable estate attorney for your affairs and suggestions on estate tax-related decisions.

Insurance policies
Find and review all your policies – life, home, automobile – and give their contact information. Some of these may carry additional benefits in the event of your death.

Credit cards and other liabilities
List all your credit cards and debt obligations (mortgage, bank loans, etc.) with their outstanding balances. Give contacts and telephones. Some credit cards carry death benefits too. All credit cards will need to be cancelled so they don’t continue to accumulate fees and interest charges.

Funeral arrangments
Don’t leave this grief-enhancing duty to your family.  Take care of them now so that your family memebers will be spared these details and decisions.

Your first reaction will be to procratinate feeling that this is too much to do.  But just take each bolded item above on the estate planning checklist to tackle each week.  Get assistance for your retirement advisor if needed. You’ll find that in a few weeks, you have everything organized and it won’t be so bad afterall.

Bookmark It