It all started with my adult daughter’s comment that if my husband and I should leave this world at the same time, then she didn’t have a clue as to where we banked, who our doctors were or where important papers might be hiding. Since my daughter lived in another city, I realized how truthful her comments were. She had not lived in her hometown for over 20 years and was really quite unfamiliar with most “family matters”. So with pen and paper my husband and I set about to remedy the situation. Quite honestly, I felt confident that one or two evenings of listing pertinent information would suffice. Nine pages and two weeks later…we were finished. This is what we listed:
- Social Security numbers
- Medicare numbers
- driver’s license numbers
- make and model of all our vehicles/purchase date and price
- location of Wills, Power of Attorney, Living Wills, healthcare wishes
- banking institutions with all account numbers…include debit/credit card numbers with expiration dates and CVC codes.
- all credit card accounts with contact info for customer service: we included card numbers with expiration dates and CVC code
- all insurance policies…include policy numbers and contact information.
- retirement info: pension and annuities with contact info
- our doctors and their physical locations
- bank lockbox number and location of entry key—make sure at least one other person besides your spouse is listed on the signature card and can access the box should you and your husband be unable to physically access it
- utility account numbers and service providers. In our case we listed physical location since our local utility company had moved to a new location recently.
- location of our password journal that lists usernames and passwords for pertinent online accounts
- funeral home preferences and interment wishes
- anything else you feel your family should know.
Our daughter now has our original list, and we have a copy in our lockbox. (It probably would be wise to update it once a year (expiration dates and CVC codes). No kidding, this was not an easy task but the peace of mind we gained when it was completed was well worth the effort. So in this month of LOVE why not perform a little labor of love for your family? We have several weeks of Winter left … what better time to do it? It might even help the last few weeks of Winter to pass swiftly and then Spring will be just around the corner!!!
(c) 2023 Leslie Kelley.