How to make it easier on your loved ones!

We encounter a number of people who are now enamored with electronic statements, and otherwise going "paperless".

If you are going to do that, it requires some extra organization on your part to make winding up your affairs manageable, or even possible after your death. Mostly, if you get paper statements, getting your mail forward to a family member will help them run down most, if not all of your accounts, and business affairs.

If you do online only, they if they can sign on to your computer [password?], they almost always need additional passwords for signing in to accounts and usually a different one to open statements received as attachments to emails sent to their email address.

Where do you keep those and do you keep them "paperless"? Something needs to be written down somewhere, even if it is directions to a safe or lockbox and how to open it to access the various computer files.

Often, life insurance policies do not send electronic statements, yet. If a policy is paid up, unless the heirs can find the policy, waiting until an annual statement is mailed is about all they can do, unless you have contact information and policy information in a file for your agent(s). HOWEVER, I was told recently by a company I can not in good conscience recommend, that they don't mail annual statements on paid-up policies! WHAT? How do you find out about those, how many policies do they have that have never been paid - they are a "roll-up" insurer, having apparently purchase a number of smaller and/or lesser know companies.

This company [I won't name for now], their customer service people were dismissive, and often told us things that were later contradicted, and when a copy of the policy was requested, we received a letter, they failed to process one claim, citing the file as incomplete, but when they checked it was complete, but the claim information had been placed in the file for another policy on the same insured. Later they supplemented the required information with a request for a certified death certificate [after having processed the claim on the same decedent on another policy], so who knows. The moral here is it pays to do business with an agent/representative that stays on top of your affairs, and that you stay on top of your policies, no matter how old, if still in force, and try to avoid those who are in the life insurance business [companies] that are more interested in consuming small companies than issuing policies and standing behind them, if that is possible.

Organize your stuff, and make it at least possible to track down your stuff for your heirs, someone will have to one day.