October is Estate Planning Awareness Month, and here in Maine, it arrives at just the right time of year.
Fall has a way of reminding us to get things in order.
Mainers pull boats from the water and close camps for the season. We stack wood, check furnaces and put away the outdoor furniture. We find the storm windows, clean out the garage and make a mental list of everything that needs attention before the first real snowfall.
We understand the value of being prepared.
But there is one kind of preparation that is remarkably easy to put off: making sure someone else could make sense of our lives if we suddenly could not explain them.
That is why, during Estate Planning Awareness Month, we are looking beyond the documents and talking about the things nobody thinks about.
Estate Planning Is More Than Signing Documents
When most people think about estate planning, they think about a Will, a Trust, a Power of Attorney or an Advance Health Care Directive.
Those documents play an important role. They identify who can act for you, who will receive your property and how you want certain decisions handled. Wills and Trusts form the foundation of many estate plans, but the planning process should not necessarily end when you sign the documents.
There is another side of estate planning that receives much less attention.
Could the people you have chosen actually figure out what you have and how your life works?
Think about everything you manage during an ordinary week.
You pay bills, receive statements and use passwords and PINs. Automatic payments may come from several different accounts. You might access your insurance information online or store photographs in the cloud. Perhaps you have subscriptions that renew automatically, a storage unit nobody thinks about, a safe deposit box, a home security system, reward points, online shopping accounts or recurring charitable donations.
You know these things exist because you deal with them.
But does anyone else?
The Things We No Longer Keep in a Filing Cabinet
Not very long ago, someone could reconstruct much of a person's financial life by opening the mail and looking through a filing cabinet.
That is becoming less true every year.
Banks encourage paperless statements. Bills arrive by email. Many people access investment accounts only through online portals. Thousands of photographs that once filled albums may now exist only on a phone or in cloud storage.
Even ordinary household information has moved online. We manage utility bills, insurance policies, tax records, medical portals, security systems and subscriptions electronically.
That creates a modern estate planning problem.
What happens when the only person who knows where everything is can no longer tell anyone?
Legal authority matters, but authority and information are two different things.
An agent under a Power of Attorney may have authority to manage your finances. That person still needs to know where you bank.
A Personal Representative may have authority to administer your estate. That does not mean the Personal Representative will automatically know about an account that never generated a paper statement.
Your family may know that you took thousands of photographs over the years. They may have no idea where you stored them or how to access them.
What About the Things That Aren't Online?
Estate planning blind spots are not limited to technology.
Maine families often own property and possessions that do not fit neatly onto a financial statement.
Think about the tools in the garage, equipment in the barn or the boat stored away for winter. You might own a valuable collection, jewelry tucked away for safekeeping or boxes of family photographs that nobody has labeled.
For certain belongings, a personal property memorandum can serve as a useful estate planning tool. It may help when you want particular people to receive specific items of tangible personal property.
Other easily overlooked items can create practical problems, too. A safe does little good if nobody knows the combination. Family members may not know about a safe deposit box. An automatically paid storage unit can remain out of sight and out of mind for years.
Don't Forget the Maine Camp
Then there is the Maine camp.
Everyone in the family may know it simply as "the camp." But who knows exactly how you own it? Where is the deed? How do you pay the taxes, insurance and other expenses?
For Maine families with a camp, cottage or seasonal property, these details can become especially important. We discuss some of those issues in Who Gets the Camp? Estate Planning Questions Maine Families Should Ask.
None of these examples automatically signals a problem with your estate plan.
Instead, they show why good estate planning requires us to think beyond the legal documents.
You Don't Need to Give Everyone Your Passwords
Getting organized does not mean handing your children a list of every password, account balance and private detail of your life.
You should handle sensitive information carefully and securely.
The goal is much simpler.
Someone you trust should know where to begin.
Perhaps that person knows where you keep your important documents. He or she may know the names of your attorney, accountant and financial advisor. You can also make sure the right person knows which financial institutions you use and where to find insurance information or instructions for important digital accounts.
Everyone in the family does not need to know everything.
However, if something happened tomorrow, the right person should not have to start from nothing.
A Fall Estate Planning Exercise Worth Doing
As you work through your usual fall checklist this October, add one more task.
Imagine that someone you trust had to step into your shoes tomorrow morning.
Now take yourself out of the picture.
You cannot answer the phone or explain where something is. You cannot provide a forgotten password. No one can ask you which drawer to open or where to look on your computer.
Where would that person get stuck first?
The answer may reveal more about your estate planning than another checklist ever could.
Perhaps no one knows where you keep your original Will.
Your family might not know about a safe deposit box. They may not understand how you pay the camp expenses. Decades of photographs could sit in an online account that no one else knows how to access.
You may even have an account, piece of property or valuable collection that you have never mentioned. It simply never occurred to you that anyone else needed to know about it.
Those are the blind spots worth finding while you still have time to address them.
Estate Planning Awareness Month Is About More Than Having a Will
Estate Planning Awareness Month offers a good reminder to create an estate plan if you do not have one.
It also gives people who already have a plan an opportunity to look at it differently.
If you already have a Will, your planning may not end there. Our article You Have a Will. Now What? discusses practical steps Maine residents can consider after signing a Will.
A signed estate plan is important.
A workable estate plan is even better.
This October, Maine families will prepare homes, camps and properties for the colder months ahead. Consider setting aside a little time to prepare the information surrounding your estate plan, too.
You do not need to organize your entire life in one afternoon.
Start with one question:
If someone had to step into my life tomorrow, would they know where to begin?
If the answer is no, you may have just found the first thing to put on your fall list.
The Things Nobody Thinks About
Throughout Estate Planning Awareness Month, we will look at practical issues that people often overlook when planning for the future.
Next week: Who Knows Where Everything Is?
Because a good estate plan isn't just about having the right documents.
It's about making sure your plan works in real life.
Ready to Take a Closer Look at Your Estate Plan?
Aging In Maine helps individuals and families throughout Maine create and review estate plans designed around their needs, property and goals.
If it has been a while since you reviewed your plan, or if you are ready to start planning, contact Aging In Maine to start the conversation.
