By Adam Tarr
Most people understand the importance of having a living will, but nowadays more and more people are finding out about the benefits of doing further pre-planning. The thought of planning your own funeral and even writing your own obituary may initially come across as creepy, but after taking a second look it is often a meaningful and helpful process.
Photo: valleyoflife.com
The people you leave behind are the ones that benefit most from funeral pre-planning and asset organization. Your loved ones have enough stress and sadness to deal with after you pass that they do not need additional tasks. Funeral pre-planning is a simple way of removing tough decisions from your loved ones responsibilities. By picking out a funeral home, addressing how you would like the service to go, and even writing your own obituary you make life easier on everyone you leave behind. Further, by organizing your assets in advance your next of kin will be able to carry out your will without having to sort through endless financial records. Most people think these things are covered in a will, but in truth the will is an instructive document and offers little help in organization or even finding where one's assets are located. Besides helping loved ones after you pass, funeral pre-planning can help you get organized yourself even if you expect to live many more decades. For those people with a serious illness it becomes even more important, and for some people it helps them gain a sense of closure.
The good news is that as pre-planning has becomes more popular, there are increasing ways to handle the process. Some of the most common ways are presented below:
Have your attorney keep a separate document with your will that works as a table of contents. It would list all of your assets and any pertinent information about them. There could also be a document that has your wishes for the funeral. The only issue here is that as your wishes or assets change you will have to update them. This may require fees depending on your attorney.
Another option is to keep these asset lists and funeral wishes in a safety deposit box where you can update them as needed. Just be sure someone knows to go to the safety deposit box shortly after you pass away.
Some funeral homes will allow people to come in and pre-plan their funeral. This has the benefit of having all of your wishes already with the company that will be carrying them out. The problem is that the funeral home will most likely not help you with asset organization.
Another popular option is to join a website that not only stores your information but also helps you organize. Usually there is a one-time fee that allows the user to input their funeral wishes as well as organize all of their assets. The member can then go back in and update things as often as they like at no additional charge. When the member dies, the death is verified before the information is released to the people you have selected to carry out your wishes. Here security and ease of use are of utmost importance.
No matter what method you chose the key is to start early and include as much information as you can. If you wait to long you will eventually keep putting it off until you forget completely and it is too late. As far as what information to write down, try to imagine being on the other end and having to decipher through all of someone’s assets. If a piece of information would make that job easier, it should be included. Each asset should have a location, estimated value, account or policy number, etc. For funeral wishes, requests should be simple and to the point so there is no confusion. Some attorneys may have templates to make the job easier. The websites mentioned above also have these templates that can make the job easier.
beRemembered.org - leave messages for loved ones and online funeral pre-planning. http://www.beremembered.org/
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The above article is the writer's opinion and no claims are made for its accuracy.
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