Insurance and Your Estate Plan

Insurance and Your Estate Plan

by Melinda Gustafson Gervasi

June 28, 2024

Image by M. Gustafson Gervasi, 2024 -- Focus on the Details

Happy National Insurance Day to all who celebrate!  Yes, today, June 28th, is a day set aside to encourage us to review of insurance policies.  It's a thing, look it up!  Let's use this day take a broad view of insurance in your life.  Common types of insurance include:

• Life (whole life or term policy)
• Disability
• Long-term Care
• Health (including dental and vision)
• Automobile
• Homeowners or Renters
• Pet Health Care

Whether you are in a car accident and are too sick to manage your financial world or your Earthly time has come to an end, someone is going to pick up the financial paperwork of your life and begin sorting it out.  Make that task easier by creating an up-to-date account of your insurance policies.  It can be as simple as handwritten notes on a piece of paper; the value is in organizing your thoughts and policies.

List the types of policies you carry along with the company that provides it for you and contact information.  If you can include a sentence or two about how the insurance works, that is ideal.  For example, if you carry disability insurance that kicks in after 90 days paying 1/2 of your salary, that is very helpful information to your Power of Attorney for Finance.

Completing this review may also help you identify areas where you have too much coverage, pinpointing an expense you may be able to reduce.  Or conversely, you may identify a weakness in your finances where adding or increasing insurance may be wise.  For example, if you took out term life insurance when you started your new career but have not reviewed it since getting married, buying a home and becoming a parent.  The policy you needed as a single renter may be very different than what you need today.

Finally, remember that what you write on a beneficiary form controls where a death payment for insurance will go when you pass.  Review those forms.  Are they up-to-date?  If not, make them so.

Thank you for reading.  Remember that a blog is not an attorney nor is it legal advice.  Please consult a licensed lawyer in your home state for advice specific to your situation.  My hope is that my writing will encourage thought and reflection.  Be well.

Wisconsin's Authorization for Final Disposition Form

Wisconsin's Authorization for Final Disposition Form

By Melinda Gustafson Geravsi

June 20, 2024

The author with her father, approximately 1976.

It was 11pm on a Friday night when the hospital called with the news that my father. who had been in palliative care for the past week, had left this Earth.  It happened just after my mother and I left his room for the evening.  Not in the best of health herself, my mother needed to rest at her home.  If he had control over his last breath, I believe my father waited until my mother was out of the room, a final effort to shield her from pain.

While we knew what was going to happen, until it actually did the shock and grief hovered above, descending first with the phone call, then deeper when we walked into his room for a final time to say a good-bye.  I will never forget my mother's gasp as she entered his room.  Lifeless, she knew and felt his absence.  

As we walked out of the hospital room door, the staff at the nurses station, with clipboards in hand, were ready to move things along.  The room was needed.  What were the next steps?  Which funeral home should be called?  We had one hour to give our response.  Yes, one hour at what was now well after midnight and the end of a very long week, and the final march of a very difficult illness that claimed his life. One hour to make several administrative decision.

Most people do not have an Estate Planning and Probate attorney in the family, but my mother did.  We had talked about the next steps and were able to put the plan in motion.  We had selected direct cremation with a specific funeral home.  We made one phone call, and that person started a phone tree to alert other loved ones.  

Even though my parents were proud of my legal education and solo private practice, I was still their daughter.  The toddler who rode her bike off the porch and into a window-well the day we moved into the family home.  The argumentative teenager who challenged them when limits on my freedom were imposed in the form of a curfew.  They listened, but often did not act on legal advice I offered.  Specifically. my dad never filled out Wisconsin's Authorization for Final Disposition Form, which allows a person to say who is in charge of making funeral and burial decisions as well as what types of disposition they want (cremation, green burial, funeral, etc.).  Given that my father was survived by his spouse, the authority flowed to her under Wisconsin law.  Yet, it was not without problems.  

Growing up my father often said he wanted a Catholic funeral and to be buried in the same cemetery as his parents.  Statements his son from a previous marriage knew.  However, in his later years as his health failed and he saw how others used cremation as an affordable alternative, his opinion changed.  He told me he wanted to preserve as many assets as possible for my mother and to "not waste good money on a pricey Catholic funeral".  Instead, my parents thought they should both be cremated and the ashes put to rest in a joint plot where my mother's extended family was buried.  In the end, it fit their life and needs.  Due to an estrangement with is son, this change of opinion was not shared.  And it came as a harsh surprise at my father's death. And that harsh surprise created even more tension at an already awkward funeral. 

If you live in Wisconsin and know who you want to make funeral decisions and you what type of burial you prefer, consider completing this free, fill-in-the-blank form.  It will make those hours immediately after death a bit more manageable for loved ones.  It will clearly state who should be in charge.  And it will convey your wishes to those with an interest in your final good-bye.  Many of my clients seek out ways to make their passing as easy as possible on their loved ones.  Take it from me, who learned from personal experience, this simple form is one way to convey your wishes and not have it appear that someone has "taken charge of your funeral", causing other loved ones to feel slighted.

Thank you for reading.  This blog is not legal advice, but rather a platform to spark thought and reflection.  Please seek legal counsel from an attorney licensed in your state of residence for advice specific to your situation.  Be well!

Word of the Month: Intestate

Word of the Month: Intestate

By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi

June 14, 2024

At first glance you may have thought this month's word to define was interstate.  We all have road trips on our minds as we dive into the heart of summer.  However, the word this month is intestate, meaning to die without leaving a valid will.  Over the years I have commented frequently on the fact that the laws governing estate planning and probate are state specific.  Each state legislature writes its own laws.  While there are common aspects to this area of law, you will find variation as you cross state lines.

Here in my home state of Wisconsin there is a statutory plan for what happens to a person's assets if they die without a valid will.  We call them the Intestacy Statutes and they can be found in Wis. Statutes, Chapter 852Chapter 852, where assets pass according to your next of kin. If you are a visual learner, check out this chart those shows next of kin relationships chart those shows next of kin relationships. 

Saying you died without a will may be technically correct.  However, if you never make the time to say where you want your assets to go at death, there is a plan already in place for Wisconsin residents, as noted above.  Our statutes make an assumption that you want them to go to your relatives.  Sometimes this true, many times it is not.  Writing an estate plan is about taking control of the situation.  You create a will (or sometimes a trust) to nominate someone to be in charge of your final affairs (called a Personal Representative in Wisconsin, an Executor in other states) and distribute your assets that did not have a beneficiary form or co-owner.  

As you are tempted by the lovely summer weather and consider putting off doing an estate plan, perhaps the power of taking control of the situation will be your motivation to get this task done now.  Or perhaps you need to go out, live it up, and circle back to this task once the dark and gray skies of November roll into Wisconsin.  Until then, the laws of intestacy are in place.

Remember that a blog is not legal advice, but a way to spark thought and reflection.  Always consult an attorney in your home state for advice specific to your situation.  Thank you for reading, and be well.

Welcome to June and All of Its Change

Welcome to June and All of Its Change

By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi

June 3, 2024

June has long been a month known to usher in change, both in terms of the seasonal weather to your daily lifestyle habits. Underneath the long, sun-filled days brought by the Summer Solstice, there are graduations and weddings.  There are cross-country moves and the laying down of roots in a new community.  New jobs bring human resources paperwork for retirement accounts and life insurance.  Our weekend calendars fill up with parties and celebrations.  Once the dust settles, it is important to exhale and assess whether any of these changes warrant you creating or updating your estate plan.  Three key events include:

1. Moving to a new state:  The laws of estate planning and probate are written by state legislatures, meaning the law varies from state to state.  If you created an estate plan ten years ago when you moved to Boston, but have now relocated to Minneapolis, new documents should be created;
2. Graduation and entering the workforce: With diploma in hand, many people walk away from student life and begin their career path.  Along with paid vacation, sick leave, and office holiday parties, many people will be creating retirement plans and acquiring work-based life insurance.  Making a plan for where those assets go upon death is one facet of the estate planning process. 
3. Saying "I Do": Two little words can radically change what happens if you are suddenly too sick to make health care or financial decisions, or if you die.  Not all states make the same assumptions.  If you have said "I Do" do not assume your spouse can automatically make decisions for you if you cannot.  Learn about the laws of your state, and then put your wishes into a legally binding format by creating and estate plan.

Niagara Falls, image by M. Gustafson Gervasi 2024

A blog is meant to spark thought and reflection, it is not intended to be legal advice.  Please consult an attorney in your home state for advice specific to your situation.  Thank you for reading, and be well.