Discovering the Value of a Legacy Binder
How this Professional Organizer learned the value of a Legacy Binder
Over the last few years, several of my clients have lost close family members. In addition, my own brilliant father passed away 16 months ago. Even though Wills and other legal directives were in place, these difficult situations were, shall we say, a bit messy. With these experiences in mind, during the recent COVID-19 quarantine I embarked on a project to (finally) prepare my Family Trust. In preparation for this, I gathered my files containing vital information such as insurance policies, investment accounts, bank and credit accounts, birth and marriage certificates. While reviewing these documents, I made two very interesting discoveries:
Discovery 1
My husband works in the insurance industry. As a result, we have a fair number (translate LOTS) of insurance policies. After I had gathered all the insurance policy files, my husband reviewed them and designated some policies as “current” and relegated the rest to the “shred pile.” About a week later, in reviewing our monthly budget, I discovered that two of the life insurance policies that had been relegated to the shred pile were actually current, to the tune of 1.5 million dollars. Had I shredded these policies, my family members would have never known that they even existed. It amazed me that even with my “highly organized” file system, we could have such a large oversight.
Discovery 2
About a 1.5 years ago, we changed financial planners. The change was somewhat labor-intensive and with my sincere loathing of all things financial, I paid as little attention as possible. With my recent quest to prepare my Family Trust, I determined to put aside my distaste for the minutiae of numbers and invest the time into learning about our financial portfolio. In this process, I realized that we had overlooked (YES, that word again) 3 investment accounts that were still sitting in our previous financial planner’s office. The accounts were relatively small, totaling $38,000 I believe, but they were languishing in another financial planning office without any oversight as our former financial planner had retired. Again, had I not discovered these accounts, my family members would never have known of their existence.
These discoveries INSPIRED me to create my own family LEGACY BINDER. This binder contains a summary of each of my important accounts and policies as well as supporting documentation. In a potential emergency, this binder will give my loved ones a complete and organized record of all my insurance policies, investment accounts, health information, legal directives, bank and credit accounts, important phone numbers and more. My personal LEGACY BINDER is invaluable and will give peace to my family members in a potentially stressful time.
New Service
Clean Slate now offers Legacy Binder preparation services for you.
If you are interested in this invaluable product, please contact me for a complimentary consultation.