It’s Not for Me, It’s for Them…

My husband and I met with an attorney today.

Just keep on reading, so as not to get the wrong idea…

We were putting together a will.

When most people hear the word, “will,” I think it scares them.  It makes them think about things that they simply don’t want to acknowledge.
I know this, because I used to be one of those people.
However, with everything that has happened over the last year, it is something that I am definitely all for setting up before it’s too late.

A lot of that comes from having a child.
Children have a way of making you realize what is important in life –
and in order to protect those important things in life, you need “a plan” for what should happen when you’re gone.

It sure isn’t easy, that’s for sure.
Sitting at a table with your spouse, answering questions like “Who will become the guardian of your child if something happened to the both of you?”

Those aren’t decisions that you make lightly, by any means.

The other emotionally raw part of a visit like this is deciding end-of-life measures.
Again, something that no one ever wants to think about, but will inevitably happen to all of us.
And by setting something up now, you can be the one who decides how you will spend your final moments.

I never really knew what life insurance and living wills were until I started in the workforce.
They don’t have a course to teach you about that stuff – at least not at my high school.

I learned bits and pieces about it through my many doctor appointments as a teenager.
At one point, I learned that my parents had not carried life insurance on me before I fell ill.
Again, not really a topic that you want to think about.
However, my dad attempted to buy a life insurance policy for me after I was sick and was basically told,
“If you had done this the day before she got sick, you could have gotten it.
Now she has a pre-existing condition.  She can never have life insurance.”

I use the word never quite loosely.
After a certain period of time (years), many companies allow individuals who had once been ill
to purchase life insurance again.
Because insurance is all about risk.
You pay a certain amount of money to a company who, in exchange, covers you for an unknown risk.

But what happens when that risk becomes known?

You are no longer an unknown risk.  You are now very much a known risk.
And the costs to your known risk are high as well.

A lot of employers offer a certain amount of life insurance to their employees, as kind of a ‘perk’ for working there.  Typically, it falls between 1-5 years of their annual salary.
As an employee, I took advantage of the supplemental insurances that were offered  –
life insurance being one of them.
It was only available to me because I was 5+ years cancer-free.
If I were to try to get life insurance now, I don’t know if there’s a company on this planet that would take me.

And that’s what our visit was today.
Just like life insurance, we are planning for the unknown.
We were making decisions in the best interest of our daughter and of each other.

This upcoming surgery won’t be a walk in the park.  Aside from the extensive operating time itself, the recovery will be long and painful.  And as much as we don’t want to think about it, we know that something could happen that we didn’t plan for.

But something that each one of us can do before we leave this earth is to have a plan for after we’ve gone.
If you have a spouse or children, parents or siblings – realize that you’re not doing it for you,
you’re doing it for them.

In the midst of sadness and extremely raw emotions, know that your loved ones won’t have to worry about figuring out your wishes – because you’ve already done that for them.  You’ve laid it all out and all they have to do is carry through with them.

It’s a sensitive subject – no doubt about that.
But just imagine that the worst happens… your loved one passes away.
There’s no will, no life insurance.
In addition to your grief, you’re left with a big mess to sort through.

If you’ve talked about it, get it down on paper.  Make sure that your loved ones know your wishes.

We don’t get to choose when we leave this world,
but we can choose to have things in line before that day comes.

For information and quotes on life insurance, as well as other types, please click here.