Download the Roadmap for Heirs
We first published this Roadmap for Heirs Navigator in 2016 as a way to help our clients identify and record important personal, financial, and health information that is likely to play a role in the estate resolution process. Given the critical importance of the subject, as well as the significant technological, societal, and legal changes that have occurred in the intervening period, we are publishing an updated version of the Roadmap that we hope will be even more useful for our clients as they contemplate and prepare for the difficult but inevitable process that will be brought on by their passing.
What is a Roadmap for Heirs?
A Roadmap for Heirs is an information repository where you can record important personal, financial, and health information that can be invaluable during the estate resolution process. We have attached a Roadmap that can serve as your starting point. While not exhaustive and applicable to every circumstance, we have included the most common significant items that often require attention upon the death of a loved one, and it is set up so that you can customize it to your specific requirements.
How and Why Should I Use This Roadmap?
The primary purpose of a Roadmap for Heirs is to assist estate executors and heirs as they work through the administrative details that accompany your eventual death. At a basic level, this document can serve as a central repository of estate documents, important contacts, and helpful directions that can streamline the process of gathering important information regarding your personal affairs and your commitments to your beneficiaries.
As an example, we want to highlight one benefit of a Roadmap for Heirs related to the payout of life insurance benefits. Far too often, many beneficiaries are unaware of the existence of life insurance policies owned by their loved ones and, as a result, fail to submit claims. A Roadmap for Heirs can help beneficiaries collect these legally entitled life insurance benefits.
When Should I Use This Roadmap
As soon as possible! Regardless of age or health, we recommend that you begin using this document to record and organize important information sooner rather than later. Preparing this information early can only help to simplify the estate process. Indeed, even if one expects many prosperous and fulfilling years of life to come, there are certain items (such as healthcare information, location of important documents, and information regarding financial accounts) that should ideally be communicated long before death or before memory deterioration becomes a concern. Of course, the Roadmap can and should be updated periodically or when significant items change.
Who Should Have Access to This Roadmap
The information (or some portion of it) contained in your Roadmap should be made available to your beneficiaries and anyone else that might help manage your estate after you pass away. Examples (other than direct beneficiaries) may include estate executors, attorneys, accountants, portfolio managers, and neighbors or close friends. The Roadmap contains a line item indicating who the recipient is, and the information contained in the Roadmap should be tailored to the role and responsibilities of that recipient.
Where Should I Keep This Roadmap
Given the highly sensitive nature of the information contained in this document, we strongly suggest that copies be kept in a secure location, including the encryption of electronic copies. Clients of Pekin Hardy Strauss may want to consider storing an electronic copy of their Roadmap in their personal vault in Wealth Center, as this searchable repository uses bank-level security to protect sensitive client information.
In cases in which you wish not to disclose certain pieces of information prior to your death, you should provide your beneficiaries with necessary instructions about how to access its secure location (such as keys to a safe or computer passwords for electronic copies) upon your death. It would be unfortunate to go through the process of creating a Roadmap only to have it ignored because your beneficiaries are unaware of its existence or location.
Other Considerations
We have touched briefly on the importance of communicating certain types of electronic information, such as computer passwords, to heirs in order to simplify the estate resolution process. Given the substantial and increasing role that digital communication plays in our everyday lives, we have included space in our Roadmap for this and several other of the more important pieces of digital information that you may want to communicate to your heirs and others. These include debit card PINs, online banking login information, and mobile phone PINs, among others. However, our list is not exhaustive, and we understand that some clients have a substantial online presence that may warrant a more comprehensive digital information repository. We recommend that those individuals consider the creation of a “digital will,” which can be used to store all of one’s most important electronic information.
Closing Thoughts
Managing the passing of a loved one is both logistically difficult and emotionally taxing. It is our hope that creating a Roadmap for Heirs will help you lighten the burden that will inevitably fall upon your heirs. If you would like to discuss this document in further detail, please contact your portfolio manager.
This article is prepared by Pekin Hardy Strauss, Inc. (“Pekin Hardy”, dba Pekin Hardy Strauss Wealth Management) for informational purposes only and is not intended as an offer or solicitation for business. The information and data in this article does not constitute legal, tax, accounting, investment or other professional advice. The views expressed are those of the author(s) as of the date of publication of this report and are subject to change at any time due to changes in market or economic conditions. Pekin Hardy cannot assure that the strategies discussed herein will outperform any other investment strategy in the future, there are no assurances that any predicted results will actually occur.
