When my wife and I travel together (especially out of country) and the kids are back home, I leave a short list of names and contact info along with a key to our safety deposit box with a trusted friend who knows the drill if something were to happen.

If you send hard copies to others, like parents or out of state relatives, instruct them to conceal them as well.

We don’t plan to save photos, just our negatives. You can carry a lot more negatives than photos. Take pictures (with film as well as digital) of the treasured photos you don’t have negatives for and keep those. Consider doing the same for your home inventory; have a set of negatives as well.

I’m not a big fan of jump drives for permanent storage, or even long-term storage. I’ve seen them fail. I prefer repetitious redundancy. Have the jump drive, e-mail the documents to yourself, burn a CD, have online backup and have a hard copy. Encryption is a good idea; I need to learn how to do that.

Wills are not the place to save money. There are many, many pitfalls and working with an attorney can save a great deal of heartache and money. By all means draft something up before you go, but get expert advice to finalize it. The same with Powers of Attorney.

You may find you need to invest in a trust for maximum protection of your family, particularly if you have a disabled dependent who will need lifetime care. Screw it up and your dependent can end up kicked off of disability and Medicaid or Medicare until the money you left is all gone.

Don’t confuse a will with estate planning. They are different things, and consulting a financial planner and estate planner can save obscene amounts of money down the road between taxes and probate fees.

I am single and not attached and am trying to find a free PoA form (I am unemployed) so that my family can handle my stuff if I am incapacitated. I don’t have much, but the hassles that I am reading here in the comments and the column are too trying on a family. They won’t thank you for the hassle when you get better.

Thanks Trent!!!

I just finished some in-field training with Noah’s Wish (http://www.noahswish.org) and so disaster/emergency response is on my mind.

I did the same thing and did more than she did. I typed two pages on the computer. One page had the list of my contacts-daughter, son, and a local neighbor with name, address, phone #. The other page listed my meds and dosages; my blood type; my dr’s name, address, & phone #; my allergies; my name, address, & phone #. When I printed them out, I minimized them, put them back to back, and covered them with the plastic laminated pouches. I attached one to the left edge of my sun visor and put one in my purse. I update them when needed.

The article started by talking about Trent’s mother and her difficulties organizing his grandmother’s information. That directly addresses your situation, since you mention you have kids.

And most readers of this blog are in a younger age group than you, so there is nothing wrong with Trent addressing the majority of his audience directly with examples that are relevant to younger people. Personally, I appreciate it.

By the same token, the intention to legally adopt children should be actually carried out also.

Living together doesn’t count for much either, in the world of probate.

Seek legal advice please, and make sure that what you want to have happen is what will actually happen.

Two years ago my husband woke up and had two seizures, he had never had one before. I had to try to recount his medical history at the ER. I could tell them his medication, but not much about his history prior to our relationship. Something like this would’ve come in handy.

This past February my town was hit with an ice storm that left us without power (at my house) for a week. We also went several days without telephone reception, and the roads were very dangerous to travel due to ice and fallen tree limbs. It was a scary time because I didn’t know if my relatives were ok or if they had food/heat/water. Having a plan would’ve saved us a lot of worry and endangerment since we ended up braving the roads in order to check on our families.

An important thing to note, if you update copies of your legal documents (will, living will, power of attorney, etc.) it is crucial that you destroy all copies of the previous document. For example, if there are multiple copies of a will floating around, that can raise legal issues after your death, even if there is a clause stating you revoke all prior wills. Competency at the time of execution can become an issue and make an even bigger mess of an already difficult situation.

1) Make an evacuation checklist. We had our important paperwork all pulled together (for potential evacuation), but we left it behind, meaning we have or still need to replace SS cards, marriage license, etc. And that’s with plenty of warning/time to evacuate. Wildfires may not give you as much time. Make sure you include things like wedding photos if they can’t be replaced.

2) Keep some cash on hand during disaster season if you have one. My parents live near Baton Rouge. After Katrina, stores opened on generators, but banking systems were down for days. A lot of the regional banks were based in New Orleans. No credit cards, debit cards, or checks could be processed. ATMs were mostly down too. With cash you could shop.

3) The inventory Trent mentioned is a lot of work, but it’s easier before your house is crushed by storm surge. Trying to list your possessions by memory is no fun. It took us weeks to come up with an inventory for the insurance. It would have been a lot quicker and easier to document it when we still had the stuff.

4) Know your insurance exclusions. I lived maybe 2 miles from the coast and less than 100 yards from a large bay (what got us). Our homeowners excludes not only flood, but wind. We buy them both separately. Some of our neighbors didn’t have one or the other (or both). Bad idea.

5) Don’t forget to turn off the water to your house. Or the city will turn it back on, even if your entire neighborhood is uninhabitable. And you will have a broken pipe and a $500 water bill (since your house or what’s left of it is condemned and you are still commuting from another state trying to sort out the mess).

I’ve had 2 close friends lose their Mothers suddenly and neither had their records in order so it has been very difficult. Both now are proclaiming to all their friends how important this is, and this article covers just about everything.

Some things I’d like to add:

1. Pre-plan and pre-pay for your funeral if possible. It’s cheaper and most importantly, it’s done.

2. If you have been married before, or have children from previous relationships that no one knows about, please leave record of this with your important papers. You must have this information for Social Security if you are the surviving spouse.

Close friends of mine have “found out” about half-siblings they were unaware of and that one or more of their parents had been married before and there was no record of it or the dates.

3. When you create your Will, do not use the phrase “I leave everything to my children”. Use the names of the children… “I leave everything to my children, Sam, Julie, David, etc…” If you use the first phrase then you may end up in probate court with a judge who will question how many children the deceased actually had, you may have to post it in the paper as a notice for other children to come forth, you may have to get friends and relatives that have known the deceased their entire lives to testify on the number of children, etc…

Anyway, it is a real nightmare for the Executor and prolongs the probate by months. This happened to a friend of mine. So if you made your will years ago, look it over and talk to your attorney.

4. Update the list of Executors in your Will. My parents had my Aunt and Uncle listed that would currently be very inappropriate. They changed it, and none too soon.

5. Update your file cabinets and get rid of the “papers” you no longer need and only keep what is important. It will save your Executor hours & hours of having to sift through all that stuff.

6. If you have a “friend” that no one knows about but you are very close to and you would want them to know of your passing, add their name to the list of people that need to be contacted upon your death. After you’re gone they will want to know.

7. Write your Obituary and leave it with your important papers. You know best how you want to be remembered and your Executor doesn’t have to compose one on the spot. It’s always easier to “update” than to start from scratch.

That’s all I have for now but I’m sure I will learn more as my friends and family face similar situations. Hope some of these suggestions help you in the future…

I believe we all think that tucking the information in our heads will be adequate and that “someday” we’ll write it all down. Thank you for this “wake-up” call.

One of my friends is encouraging us (in her circle) to exchange contact information: lists of friends and family (names with relationships & telephone or email addresses) whom we’d need notified in an emergency. Most of us are single and realize that we’re older. Some of us have had heath “challenges” and yet we still believe we’ll remain “able”. I notice that although she sent her information to several of us, I have yet to sit down and send my list out either.
This is analogous to creating health care decisions paperwork. Absolutely essential to have someone authorized to make decisions (medical or financial) on my behalf if I am unable, yet, I and many others still haven’t created the final documents OR have them, but not shared them with the potential decision makers.