“Originally published in the February 2017 Forum Financial Magazine Written by Deanne Gage.”

When I visited my dad in Nova Scotia, there was always a trip to see his various advisors. There was always a run-through of the location of his important papers. There was always a lecture about his intentions, what to do if something didn’t come through the way he expected, who to call first and so on. I always found these sorts of matters tedious, and they dampened my otherwise blissful holiday.
I just didn’t want to think about inevitabilities. Until one day, I had to.

My dad passed away in early December from an aggressive cancer. Even when a loved one’s death is imminent, it’s still a shock when it actually happens. For that reason, it’s hard to know how you will feel and react in the moment.

I’m now officially wearing my executrix hat, but my father made things so much easier for me. Every single important document — will, house deed, car registrations, plastic cards, insurance policies,tax returns, investments, utilities, and so on — is accounted for. The funeral was pre-planned, all I had to do was order flowers and food, and write an obituary and eulogy. Good thing, too, because frankly, that’s all I could emotionally manage.

Estate planning must go beyond wills and powers of attorney. It’s also about knowing about the location of the other important papers, or at least getting organized to make things easier for the heirs. We all grieve differently, and there’s nothing worse than trying to cope with a loss and not being able to find the things you need to apply for entitlements and probate.

Managing my dad’s estate has caused me to rethink my own planning process. I manage my household’s finances and while we have wills and powers of attorney, my husband hasn’t a clue of how I’ve organized everything beyond “check these two places and call this advisor.” Those two places are a jumble to sort through. Nobody could make any sense of my system.

Meanwhile, my meticulous father typed up a list of all his assets and he updated the file every year. I have no such list.

My dad didn’t own a cellphone or engage in social media. He got email for the first time a year ago, but rarely used it, just generally to connect with my sister and me. When he passed, I connected with his friends by checking his physical address book and actually going to their houses. But where I’m from, everyone hears the news before you visit, anyway. Everyone reads the obituaries.

I, on the other hand, have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and three email accounts. Like most people, I have a mobile phone, which has all my contacts. My husband doesn’t know the password to any of those things. They are all in my head. Since I primarily work from home, I also have various clients. My husband doesn’t know all of them and their contact information.

An advisor once told me the story of his client who had become an executor. She had to wait for the mail to be able to determine the deceased’s assets. A few years later, by fluke, she discovered the deceased had an account with an online-based financial institution. The person only received online statements and the executor had no password to access. After much investigation, it turned out this online account’s value was a six-digit figure amount.

Wills and powers of attorney are just the beginning. Our digital world has expanded what we have to think about.