Earlier in the year I wrote an article on the importance of having a plan for your life and fitting your financial plan around this.
One of the aspects of a financial plan is to build up capital or income to enjoy in the future. However, sometimes circumstances dictate that the best laid plans fail, a member of the family may die or someone may no longer be able to earn an income because of long term sickness.
I will cover the matter of long term sickness next month, but this month I want to talk about protecting your assets for others in the event of your death. If you do not have any dependants, then this subject is most probably not a high priority.
If you do have dependants, you need to ask yourself a question “ How would my family fare if I died tomorrow”. You may have to do some digging in your records to find the answer. The information you are seeking runs along the following lines.
- Do I have a will in place, which is up to date and names the people I want to benefit from my assets?
- Have you named guardians for your children?
- Would the outstanding mortgage on my house be paid off in full at the date of my death by a life assurance policy?
- Would the outstanding mortgages on any buy to let or other properties be paid off in full at the date of my death by life assurance?
- Would a lump of money come to the family from a Death in Service Scheme from my employer? And if so have you completed a nomination form giving the names of the people?
- Would the value of my pension funds be returned to the family?
- Is there additional life assurance in place to replace the loss of one income for the family?
If you need help in putting together this vital information, let us know