No one ever wants to imagine that they will someday have to face the death of a loved one. Unfortunately, death is a grim fact of life that everyone will face at some point in time.
When a spouse dies, it presents a totally unique set of consequences to deal with – namely, learning how to take over complete control of your financial well being without the support and guidance of a partner.
This can be an especially scary prospect if you had not yet had the chance to secure your financial future with your spouse. If you are young, newly single, and struggling to regain control of your finances after the death of your spouse, here are some tips that should help ease the strain:
1 – Death Certificates
One of the first things you will need to do is to contact the coroner and get several death certificates – one for each creditor and insurance company that you will be dealing with. These companies will ask for a death certificate before they will close out any accounts or allow you to file a claim of any sort. You will also need to present a death certificate any time you want to change the name on a title (automobile, for example) or bank account.
2 – Beneficiary Duties
As the surviving spouse, you are most likely the sole beneficiary to your spousal estate. That means you are responsible for anything that you and your spouse incurred and acquired before your spouse’s untimely death. Create a detailed list of all of your debts, bank accounts, investment accounts, assets, tax liabilities, and insurance policies, and use this to work from. Organization is key here, and will save you from the chaotic feeling of dealing with a death.
3 – Your Spouse’s Employment Benefits
Contact the human resources department of your deceased spouse’s employer and ask about possible life insurance policies, retirement funds, and any other employee benefits that you may be entitled to collect on.
4 – Credit Card Debt
If your spouse had credit cards that were not held jointly by you, then you can call those creditors to have them wipe out the debt (unless you live in a community property state). This is true even for credit cards that you were an authorized user on, but not an account holder for.
Dealing with the death of a spouse is one of the most difficult things you can go through in a lifetime. Adding financial worries to the mix only makes the devastating situation that much harder to deal with. Follow these suggestions to get through those tough financial issues so that you can focus on what’s most important: caring for yourself through the grief.
About the author: Darren Kaler works as a personal finance specialist and does his best to offer free tax help to individuals who are in a bind because of a sudden death in the family. He recommends making sure you at least know where all of the important documents are located in your household at all times, even if you aren’t the one in charge of record keeping.
Credits: Photo courtesy of Cynthia Turek.